Illuminating
by TaikoHawk
Summary: Future AU. It was all so logical, but believing it would mean admitting everything she knew was a lie. Sakura struggles to find the truth in her life and her village. The catalyst? A half-blind prisoner who was privy to it all...
1. 1 Mission Assignment

_Author's note: Yeeeaa... so. This story came screaming at me like an ape on fire, and would not leave me alone. So after a bunch of nights lying awake into the wee hours of the... morning... sculpting it and playing with it in my head, I started pounding away on my laptop. Here's the first chapter. Pretty much, you can disregard all the more recent Naruto manga chapters. This is AU (as seems to be my forte). Itachi might be out of character a bit... but hopefully it's within acceptible parameters. Covered by the willing suspension of disbelief? That's always worked for the movies..._

_Anyway, please read and review!

* * *

_**ILLUMINATING**_  
_

Not for the first time, Sakura tried to understand the series of events that had led to her current situation. It wasn't a pleasant undertaking; mostly her mind shied away from thinking about… it. All of it. It hurt too much. But she was upset enough already by what she had before her that a little extra distress wasn't such a disaster.

She rubbed her face briskly with her palms, in the manner of one operating on too little sleep and not enough coffee.

And if her hands came away damp… Well, there was no one in that particular chamber to see anyway.

_:I can't do this… I'm a _medic _not a… a…: _she couldn't finish the thought with the term she really wanted to. It felt like it would be too much of a slight to those who had had this job before it had fallen to her. And you just don't insult the dead.

Ridiculously, that made her hastily stifle a sobbing cry. _:How long has it been? Come on, get a grip! Your village still needs you.:_

"Suck it up," she told herself, trying for a firm, gruff voice but getting only a wavering parody of one. The fact that 'her village' currently held little resemblance to _her _village might have had something to do with that.

The buildings were the same. The location was the same. The Hokage Monument was still there. Ichiraku Ramen was still there.

…But there was _so much _missing.

Sakura shivered and backed away from that line of thought, forcibly turning her attention to the file sitting on the desk in front of her.

_:Subject has numerous lacerations on torso and forearms (probable cause: bladed projectiles), with internal bleeding in the abdominal cavity caused by blunt object trauma. Apparent overuse of chakra has caused hemorrhaging in the soft tissues of the ear, eye, nose, and mouth. Subject shows signs of macular degeneration.: _Sakura gritted her teeth. They'd assured her that the prisoner's condition was not life-threatening, that he'd survive the few hours it would take her to prepare, but the medic in her was squawking with outrage at the fact that they'd just stuffed him in a cell and left him with his injuries. They forgot that she knew him, and knew, by the very fact that they'd even managed to get him into a cell, that he was closer to death than they admitted.

_:Forget this,: _she thought, snapping the file closed. _:I don't care what they say, _I'm _the top medic here, and I say I should heal him before I do anything else. It would be hard to question a dead man. Especially since everyone who might've been able to do so is--:_

Danger! Don't go there. Don't remember. Just stand up, put the file away, and go tend to your patie-- prisoner.

"I don't want to do this…" she whispered as she paused in front of the file cabinet. She understood why she had been chosen for the task. Medics, with their intimate knowledge of the workings of the human body, knew how to heal _and _how to hurt. That was why there was the Hippocratic Oath.

…Which Sakura, trained first as a kunoichi and _then _as a medic, had never sworn. It was not required of medic-nin, naturally. The 'ninja' part of the title usually overruled the 'medic' part. At least officially. If you could use your medical training to serve Konoha, you did, even if it meant causing harm. As opposed to non-shinobi doctors, medic-nin _did _differentiate between enemy and ally.

It was true, however, that medic-nin were generally not employed in tasks other than treating allies and completing normal missions. Hidden villages had their interrogation squads for the other stuff. The darker stuff. Of course, when there are no interrogators the only recourse is using a medic-nin instead; they were the next-best trained for such ventures.

Unfortunately for Sakura, she was a medic-nin currently in the grips of a crisis of motivation, morals, and depression. All three conditions would, at any other time, cause her to be taken off of this task, but… Konoha's trained interrogators were all gone, Sakura was the top medic-nin, and they didn't dare use anyone less than the top for _this _particular prisoner. So she was stuck.

The way to the high-security jailcells was dismally lonely. At one point, there may have been a number of ninja on guard down the twisting corridors, but now… Sakura saw three. Three, young, only-recently-promoted-to-Chuunin shinobi. Their faces were still round with youth below their hitai-ate. The pale seriousness in their expressions was like a fist to the gut; Sakura could remember vividly the smiles and grins on her and her peers' faces when they were at that age. Juxtaposed with these grim children, they seemed almost a dream, a teasing joke.

Sakura greeted them each with a solemn nod, wishing she could do more. She wished she could erase the premature signs of grief and stress from them, but she didn't even know how that might be possible.

At length, she reached the cell where 'her' prisoner was being held. It was in the bowels of the Konoha, the bowels of the jail. Deep in the earth, enclosed by impenetrable, chakra-strengthened stone, the cell was cool and only dimly lit.

Sakura disengaged the complicated lock on the door and swung it open, all of her attention already focused on the shadowed form within.

He was propped upright in a chair, held bound in place by strong chakra-wards. Several pairs of manacles on his arms and legs steadily drained his chakra even as his body generated it.

He looked in poor form. Blood had dried in grotesque patterns all across his face and body, and his clothes hung off him in filthy, torn strips. It didn't look as if he'd received any preliminary medical care at all; they must have just locked him immediately after they'd found his unconscious body lying in the forest.

Sakura frowned as she shut the cell door behind her and approached him. He didn't react to her presence, but she sensed that he was well aware of it. She upped the light in the cell using a chakra cue and inspected him visually.

_:Lacerations, blunt-object trauma… Hemorrhaging seems to have ceased. The visible, at least. Might still have internal,: _she catalogued. She knelt by him.

"Uchiha-san," she said in her most clinical voice. "I'm going to heal you now. Know that while I do so, I will be one twist of my chakra away from maiming or killing you. So don't try anything."

He didn't respond, but she wasn't looking for acknowledgement. He'd heard her, so he was amply warned.

Gently (probably more gently than was warranted) she placed her hands on his chest, flat against the skin just below his collarbones. Her chakra manifested around her fingers as a soft green glow, and percolated through his skin, muscle, bone, and organ.

The damage was really more excessive than the file descriptions had made it seem. It had said 'lacerations' but not that the lacerations had made so much mincemeat out of his flesh, in places. He was lucky she could use pure chakra to knit together the wounds; it didn't seem like there would have been enough flesh left to hold sutures.

She worked quietly, wondering just how the great Uchiha prodigy had managed to get so ripped up. She'd been operating under the impression that he was invincible. Clearly, she'd been mistaken. At length, she finished and withdrew, to stand and stare down at his still-bent head. He hadn't moved one iota of an inch since she'd entered the cell; he'd never even opened his eyes.

Sakura sighed and moved backwards until her back hit the wall. She slid down it to sit with her knees drawn up to her chin. Tucking her head into her arms, folded across her knees, she closed her eyes momentarily.

It was quiet here. Well, to be fair, it was quiet pretty much everywhere these days. Which was understandable; Konoha's population was… somewhat less than it had been. There were less people to make noise, but that wasn't the only reason for the preternatural hush that lay over the village. People still tried to go on living their lives, assuredly, but… It was as if all the grief had produced a tangible, muffling blanket that was ever hanging in the air. Voices seemed always muted, moods somber.

There was something a little different about the silence here, though. Here it was almost _only _silence. It wasn't the silence of pain, the silence of loss, the silence of absence…

Somehow, down here, she almost felt as if she might sleep deeply and without the night terrors that robbed her of rest only too frequently. Ironic, really. She was, after all, in the highest-security cell in Konoha, maybe five feet from one of the village's most notorious missing-nins. Speaking of…

Sakura gathered her remaining bleak straggles of energy and lifted her head to look at her prisoner. She'd healed him. Now she was supposed to interrogate him.

"Do you want to make this easier for the both of us and just tell me everything you know about Akatsuki?" she asked in a weary voice.

Nothing. Not even the twitch of a finger. If she hadn't been able to see the slight shifting of breath and pulse, Sakura might have been tempted to believe him stone. She watched him for a beat or two before it became evident that he would offer no answer whatsoever.

_:Well,: _she thought with a little sigh, _:this will be productive, I see.:_

In some ways, Sakura thought that this whole venture was pointless. As if he would break under questioning. Ha. The very idea was laughable. But still… they told her to try, and so she would. Even if all she really wanted to do these days was curl up in a hole somewhere and never even _think _the word 'ninja' again. But with the way things were going, this would not be the last interrogation she'd be asked to do, nor would he be the last human being she'd make bleed.

Her stomach turned, and with a jerky suddenness she stood up and stalked halfway to the door before her brain caught on and realized her body was operating without it's say-so. She paused, and then realized that her brain agreed with her body in that she was finished with this crap for the day. She continued on out the door. The whole thing- from standing to exiting- took perhaps a couple seconds.

Sakura glanced at the trussed-up Uchiha just before she shut the door and re-engaged the lock. He still hadn't moved.

* * *

Sakura jerked awake with a scream stillborn on her lips. It was that dream again, the one in which she watched them all die again… Kakashi-sensei, Tsunade-shishou, Iruka-sensei, Shikamaru, Ino, Lee Kiba KonohamaruIbikiGaiAnkoHinataShizuneSaiKurenai… and so many more, so many... So many dead. They were all gone, gone, gone, even in waking. All that were left were names engraved in stone- the great monument before which Sakura had taken up sentinel, just like Kakashi-sensei. The act in itself was homage to him; he'd told her, prior to his death, about his past, the reason he had one Sharingan eye and why he was chronically late. It was the least she could do for him to stand and honor both _his_ dead friends and her own.

But no amount of meditating in front of that great pillar of rock could ward off the nightmares. It was almost every night that Sakura had some form of dream-remembrance of a death, or deaths. As if it hadn't been enough for them to die once in reality, she had to relive each loss over and over again as she slept.

Sakura barely made it to the bathroom before she threw up. She spent some time sprawled at the base of the toilet, her head resting on out-flung arm, before she summoned the energy to crawl to her feet and wash the taste of bile from her mouth. And then she had to go to work, the hospital, for half a shift.

The other half of her shift was set aside for… her _other_ job. The one that involved hurting, not healing. The one that she had- in her professional opinion- absolutely no business doing.

Sakura gritted her teeth and resolved to push the matter out of her mind, at least until she _had _to think about it. She washed up, dressed, and made her decidedly _un-_merry way to the hospital.

* * *

After her half-shift was over, Sakura putzed around, procrastinating going back to the jail. But because she knew there'd be hell to pay if she didn't get some progress with the Uchiha, she eventually headed there.

The cell looked exactly the same as it had the day before, though to Sakura's eye it seemed as if he'd moved in the intervening time.

_:Good,: _she thought, a little sardonically, _:that means he's alive, at least.:_

"Hello again, Uchiha-san," she said. "Have you reconsidered what I said last time? Won't you just make this easy?"

It was something of a shock when he lifted his head and looked at her with those dark, dark eyes. Cut off from the chakra that usually made them crimson, they'd reverted to the natural black-irised angular eyes that were so typical of the Uchiha clan.

"You may as well save yourself the trouble and kill me now," he told her calmly, with no particular slant to the words. There was no fear, no contempt, no irony… nothing. He was just utterly calm. As if he faced down death every day. Eh, no biggie, it's just eternal non-existence. Whatevs.

"Hm," Sakura said, unimpressed. "You know, some doctors consider the lack of the fear of death to be a sign of psychosis? It's the natural response of anything living to fear death. It's hard-wired into us. The selfish gene, and all that. Not having that might signal something's wrong."

His dark eyes (were they more intimidating when they were onyx or when they were crimson? Close call…) surveyed her.

"You are a medic-nin." It was an observation. "You haven't the disposition to be an interrogator."

As usually happened when someone told her what she can and cannot do, Sakura bristled.

"So you say," she replied chillily. "But others might tell you that medic-nin and interrogator are only half a step away from each other."

He responded with unconvinced silence.

"Why are you protecting the rest of the Akatsuki? They don't give a whit about what happens to you; you're just a tool to Pein. You're all tools to him. And the others would be glad to be rid of you. You intimidate them, and they hate you for that," Sakura said. "And besides, you're all missing-nins. I find it hard to believe people who betray their villages would group up and suddenly develop a sense of loyalty."

"Then you have little understanding of the world and humanity."

Sakura blinked, and then narrowed her eyes. Whatever she'd expected, an insult wasn't it. He didn't seem the type to waste breath on such unnecessary things.

"Has your imprisonment made you tetchy, Uchiha-san?" she asked sweetly. "Because you seem a little upset. Why else would you try to insult me so ineptly?"

He kept his eyes fixed on her, though Sakura could tell by the hazy half-focused look to them that he could barely see her. She'd already known that he was suffering from macular degeneration because the chakra-sweep of his body she'd performed while healing him the day before had revealed it to be true. But to see the blankness of his eyes was another thing. It was almost… pitiable.

If he could hear her thoughts, he'd probably kill her through sheer force of will alone. Nobody pities an Uchiha. Particularly an S-ranked missing-nin Uchiha.

"I assure you any 'upset' you think you might detect is merely a produce of imagination," he said in his calm, deep voice.

"How solicitous of you to reassure me thusly," Sakura returned wryly. "Are you sure you don't want to help me out with my little request? Since you're being so accommodating."

"Though you may not believe me," he said in a bored tone, "I do have some feelings of loyalty and confidence toward my Akatsuki comrades. I won't turn on them so easily."

"I'm sorry to hear that, as it makes for a lot more work on my part," Sakura said. She was actually more sorry because it meant she now had to inflict injury upon him, since he wouldn't cooperate. It seemed that there had been two phases to her reaction to this war: at first she was filled with anger and hate. Then as her precious people began dying, the hate began to drain out of her. Now she just wanted all the hurting and killing to stop. Somehow, she managed to keep her cool now, faced with Itachi's bound and blinded form. She suspected Inner Sakura had some part in that; the alter ego was always mostly unflinching, for all that she'd diminished in the past years. With Inner Sakura bolstering her, she said laconically: "I had hoped I could avoid dirtying my hands with this nonsense."

"The eternal complaint of a Konoha ninja," Itachi said.

"You were one, once," Sakura said. Her hands were shaking as she pulled on her leather gloves. This was where it would start. She didn't want it to; she did not want to be here in this place doing what she was doing. But there was no help for it.

"And then I got my hands dirty," Itachi replied presently, rather cryptically. She paused, the curiosity brought on by the comment providing a welcome excuse to delay. Fighting she could do- dueling, sparring, even streetfighting with all its dirty tricks. But torture? Something in her- Pride? Honor?- recoiled from the thought. Even Inner Sakura wrinkled her nose at it.

Before she could get angry at herself or annoyed with him (he was, after all, an enemy of her village; why should she _not _hurt him, if it was to keep Konoha safe?) there was a rap at the door.

In some surprise, Sakura turned to face it, picking out the little rectangular window and the pair of eyes peering in at her through it.

"Haruno-san? You're needed immediately at the hospital," said the too-young-Chuunin on the other side. Sakura didn't know whether to curse or celebrate.

"Right," she said, instead, voice going brisk and flat in her professional tone. She was out of the cell in two shakes of a cat's tail, her gloves stripped and tucked back away in the pouch at her hip.

* * *

The hospital was always short-staffed these days, and so that meant that Sakura, as the top medic, was essentially always on-call. If there was an emergency, she was called.

Sakura was occasionally left to contemplate the insufficiency of the word 'emergency' in conjunction with certain circumstances. Sometimes, she just really felt that there needed to be a stronger word for the absolutely hopeless, dismal, bleak crises that cropped up. It took some weight out of the word when you used 'emergency' to refer to everything from heart arrhythmia (easily fixed by a small chakra shock) to major-cardiac-arrest-mixed-with-severe-bloodloss-mixed-with-poison-shock. A hierarchy of emergencies was needed.

The emergency that had called her out of her interrogation session left her too tired to even consider these thoughts; she merely crawled to one of the doctors' lounges, got herself more-or-less onto the couch, and promptly dropped into exhausted sleep. She'd drained herself to the last dregs of energy and chakra, and had still only managed to save three of five casualties. The others had been too far gone by the time she'd gotten to them.

She blankly wondered, just before succumbing to welcome oblivion, if they would have been saved if Tsunade had still been alive.

They would never know.

And the thought nearly killed Sakura.

When she woke at last, she had a tearing pain in her head and a bleak cloud over her mood. She wished, in the absent manner born of habit, that she could die.

Sakura levered herself painfully up off the couch and blinked at the clock on the wall. She'd slept for eleven hours. Her chakra reserves were mostly restored, though she'd need a good full meal before she could even consider doing any strenuous activities; she was swaying on her feet.

_:Definitely low bloodsugar,: _she thought weakly. But she still had to take a moment to summon the motivation to care and to move to fix the problem. There was a small kitchenette in the lounge; Sakura moved to the refrigerator and took stock. The fried rice looked like it hadn't been in there much longer than a week… it should be okay.

Sakura stuffed it as quickly as she could manage into her mouth, which was fortunate because a nurse came into the lounge right after she'd swallowed the last of it.

"The council wants to see you, Haruno-san," said the young woman. Sakura blinked at her momentarily.

'Why' was the logical question, but Sakura felt that this young nurse wouldn't have the answer. She was just a messenger.

"Alright," Sakura sighed. "Thank you."

The nurse nodded, and left. Sakura closed her eyes, feeling the beginnings of a headache prickling behind them.

"Damn."

* * *

Sakura stood ramrod straight, her chin raised and her expression solemn and unwavering. She didn't even (she hoped) let her fury and indignation show in her eyes.

_:They don't even realize how delicate a process interrogation is,: _she thought angrily.

"Haruno Sakura, do you mean to tell us you have not obtained any useful information from the Subject?" asked one sour-faced old prune yet again. Sakura counted to ten, gritting her teeth, before replying.

"That is, as of this moment, true. But I might point that I've only had responsibility of the prisoner for two days," she said coolly. "And that I've had to split that time between the hospi-"

"That is immaterial," interrupted another councilmember. "We want progress. Something that shows you are not just wasting our time."

"I'll get the information," Sakura- _just_- managed not to growl.

"If you don't, we will greatly question your devotion to your job and your village."

Sakura flushed hot and then cold in fury. She struggled with herself, but couldn't keep her eyes from flashing dangerously.

"You question my loyalty?" she asked in a low, icy voice. It was a voice that a Sannin would have flinched from. Which was saying something. The council weren't quite as wise as the legendary ninja, though. They just stared ominously at her. "Do you understand that interrogation is not just smacking a prisoner around? That'll never work, especially for an Uchiha. This must be subtler, more insidious. I need to undermine his very person, his psyche. He'll never break under normal methods, so it will take me a while to find a new way."

"We want products, within the week," said the council, unmoved. Sakura froze for a moment, and then bowed stiffly.

"Very well," she said through lips numbed with indignation and rage. Turning on her heel, she stalked out of the chamber.

* * *

"You are causing me much inconvenience, you know that?" Sakura told Itachi in a conversational tone. She was sitting with her back to the wall, hands clasped around her knees as she surveyed his upright form on the chair in the middle of the cell.

He opened his eyes (he'd been meditating… or napping) and glanced at her, unerringly picking her face out despite his damaged vision. "Hn."

"Yeah. It's kinda pissing me off."

No response.

"Really, come on, Uchiha-san. Sasori, Deidara, Hidan, and Kazuku are already dead. So it's not like you're betraying the Akatsuki… just the mangled remains of it."

"Your method of persuasion is… somewhat lacking," he noted dryly.

"Your method of cooperation is… somewhat lacking," she mimicked his tone and inflection.

"I was not aware I was cooperating at all."

"Exactly." They met each others' eyes and held them, trying to… not quite out-glare, but maybe out-stare, or out-gaze.

Abruptly, Sakura realized that she was acting with Itachi the way she would have acted with Naruto or Sai, and she looked away hurriedly, privately horrified.

And then she realized that Itachi had been acting the same way, and her heart nearly stopped. Then it started again as suspicion pricked her. She cast a Look at him.

"You're not really Uchiha Itachi," she accused. She fancied she saw his eyebrow twitch.

"Oh?" he said unconcernedly.

"You can't be. Uchiha Itachi doesn't engage in _banter_. He's a cold, emotionless void of a human being. And that last part is perhaps a stretch," Sakura said matter-of-factly.

"The part about being human?"

"Yes. He might not be, you know… How else could he have killed his whole clan?"

Was it just her imagination, or were his eyes flatter, sadder? Was there a small flash of anger and anguish there, too? No, of course not. Such thoughts were foolish.

"That capacity is all too human," retorted the chained man softly.

"Maybe, but that still doesn't explain why you're acting so… so… non-Itachi like," Sakura folded her arms.

"And you would know the way Itachi would act?" he asked.

"Well, I know his previous actions, and from them can built a model of his thought processes and map potential psychologies," Sakura said.

"That's presuming his actions reflect his mind and personality," said Itachi.

"He's been pretty consistent," Sakura responded dryly. "He killed his clan, left Konoha, and then when he came back he put his last living relative- his little brother- in a coma, delivered a threat to the village, and revealed himself to be a member in an organization officially opposed to Konohagakure."

As she spoke a sudden thought hit her, so quickly and so solidly it flew off her lips without volition: "Although, there is one inconsistency. I mean, why kill every Uchiha except one? Why did he stop at Sasuke? He'd already killed his mother and father, so it must not have been because of an aversion to killing close family. Letting Sasuke see what Itachi had done and live made Sasuke devote his life to vengeance; he vowed to kill Itachi in retribution. Itachi must have known this, so why did he let it happen? It's almost as if he _wanted _Sasuke to go after him. There are two possible outcomes to a fight between them: Itachi dies or Sasuke dies. But then, if Itachi wanted Sasuke to die, why draw it out like that? He could have just killed him at the same time as the rest of the Uchiha. All reports of engagements involving Itachi speak of him as a practical fighter, very efficient and quick. He doesn't do things just for show, he doesn't do stage-fighting. So it doesn't really fit that he'd just let Sasuke live on like that just to kill him later. But the idea that Itachi left Sasuke alive with the intention that Sasuke would come after him and kill him doesn't seem quite right either. Not when you consider Itachi's actions. Wanting Sasuke to kill him would imply that Itachi felt he deserved to die for what he did. But he's never shown any regret or anything to suggest killing his clan affected him emotionally…"

Sakura belatedly realized who she was postulating about and to whom, and shut her mouth rather hurriedly. Uchiha Itachi watched her (as much as he could, his vision likely limited to dim, blurry shapes) with dark, inscrutable eyes from his chain-draped position in the chair.

"Clever analysis, but you're operating under a false assumption," he said.

"Un…" Sakura managed, fighting to keep from blushing. _:Open mouth, insert foot… Wait a second. Why am I embarrassed for what I said? What, do I think I've hurt his feelings, speaking so candidly and picking apart his motivation? Stupid.:_

Sakura shoved off her embarrassment and gave the chained man her most forbidding look. "Anyway, you don't act like Itachi. So I have to wonder about that. I mean, we think you are because you look like him and have all his Akatsuki gear, but… You could just be a look-alike. Maybe if we'd seen your Sharingan, which can't be mimicked, we'd know for sure. But you were unconscious and just about drained of chakra when we found you in the forest, so we don't even know if you have the _kekkei genkai_."

"You could unchain me and I could show you my Sharingan," he suggested. Her look told him plainly that she was not amused.

"Yeah, no."

"Then I can hardly help you. I could simply tell you 'yes, I am Uchiha Itachi' but I'm going to assume you won't trust anything I say."

"Oh, well done. You _are _a genius."

"Your acrid tone indicates frustration on your part."

"I'm not frustrated."

"Hm."

"I'm not, thought I suppose it might be easy for you to make that mistake, seeing as you have little concept of what emotions really are."

"Just because you apparently believe me incapable of feeling emotions doesn't mean I can't recognize them in others."

Sometime in the last parry-and-riposte Sakura realized she was bickering with him again, and nearly swallowed her tongue.

_:The hell is this? What's _wrong_ with me?!: _she thought, horrified. She hid the reaction behind a poker-face Tsunade would have killed for, and a reiteration of her frequent question.

"Are you sure you won't tell me anything?"

There was, again, no response. Sakura clenched her jaw and thought quickly, trying to find some way to force the information out of him without resorting to pure physical violence. She couldn't quite stomach the thought of actually hitting a bound man.

_:The chakra-wards that keep him in the chair are only activated when I pass the checkpoint leading to this level of the prison,: _she thought. _:Otherwise, he's allowed to move around the cell, although he's never unchained. Maybe I can threaten to just keep the wards active all the time. He wouldn't be able to eat or go to the bathroom or anything… That would get very uncomfortable very quickly.:_

But at the same time, it sounded weak. It made it clear that she didn't really want to hurt him, a fact that would empower him. She couldn't reveal herself like that. Even so…

"How often are you fed?" she asked. The chains clinked softly as he made a small apathetic gesture. "About once a week, isn't it? Can't let you starve, but can't let you keep your strength up. What if I said I would get you more food if you cooperated?"

There was no interest in the dark eyes.

"Of course, if you don't cooperate, I can also punish you in the same vein. Since you apparently aren't a fan of food, I'm sure you wouldn't mind eating less."

"I could refuse to eat at all, and let myself starve to death," he said calmly.

"I'm afraid that wouldn't work," Sakura shook her head. "I'd just stick an IV in you. Not as satisfying for the stomach, but effective all the same."

"I don't find your threats particularly threatening," he informed her blandly. "And your methodology is a bit unconventional. Are you perhaps averse to inflicting harm on people? Even an enemy?"

Sakura's shoulders tensed. Damn his perceptiveness! She said defensively: "No. I was trained as a kunoichi before becoming a medic-nin. I can kill- _have killed_. I don't have a problem with that."

"But something is different now," he observed. Sakura was beginning to feel as if their roles were reversed. He was interrogating _her_, picking her apart.

"What could possibly be different now?" she asked, her anger and fear at being dissected this way making her dangerous. Itachi gave that little apathetic 'I dunno' gesture again. Sakura glared at him. "You should not underestimate me."

"Pointing out your humanity is not underestimating you." It was said so quietly she didn't quite catch it.

Sakura stalked to the door, and turned to face him once she reached it: "Enjoy your jail cell, Uchiha-san."

She turned to open the door but was arrested by his voice behind her.

"Haruno-san. Kisame, my partner in the Akatsuki, is also dead."

At first she didn't quite know what to make of this announcement, and so gave no response. She left the cell, locked it up again, and strode away down the hall in silence. It wasn't until she'd passed the checkpoint that she realized what'd he intended, what he'd done, in telling her that.

He'd given her a scrap of information that was small, perhaps unimportant, but just happened to be just enough to keep the council happy for the time being. Basically, he'd helped her avoid a court-martial without really betraying any vital information from the Akatsuki.

Sakura turned to stare with a creased brow back down the corridor.


	2. 2 Searching in the Dark

_Author's note: yay second chapter. I dunno... I guess I only have one thing to say: there are a few japanese terms in this. They're basically parts of a typical japanese home. So yeah. Please read and review!_

* * *

_:I don't understand him.: _There. That wasn't so hard to admit, was it? Ah, but it chafed so. He had seemed so simple, so easy to get. She'd had him all squared away and set in his little compartment in her mind, and now everything he did was breaking down everything she'd thought she'd known about him.

_"I don't understand him, I don't understand him, I _don't understand_ him!: _Sakura wanted to bash her head against the wall, or a table, or something else equally hard and unyielding. She turned her teacup around and around in her hands, watching the little loose bits of leaf swirl in the bottom.

"Why tell me that?" she muttered. "Why? Why care if I was going to get raked over the coals for not getting anything from him? Why calculate exactly the right bit of information that would save me and still preserve his loyalty? And what's more, _how did he know to do so_?"

That he'd known she was in danger of getting on the council's bad side by not obtaining any information from him spoke volumes of his perceptiveness and understanding. He _understood _the council. The careful balance between loyalty and betrayal in the bit of information he'd decided to throw them spoke of his cunning. It was so delicate, so damn _perfect_, that Sakura felt chills.

Absently, she rubbed her hands up and down her arms as she stared out her window at the rooftops of Konoha. He was truly a formidable shinobi. And she'd spent the better part of the afternoon yesterday bickering with him.

And even more astonishingly: When she came back to her apartment afterwards, she actually missed his presence.

Sakura closed her eyes briefly. "Oh god."

It was a sad testament to how lonely she was these days, bereft of her friends. They were all dead or, like Naruto, just plain missing. No one had seen hide nor hair of the blond jinchuuriki for a couple years, since he'd gone wild after receiving news of Hinata's death. No one dared venture a guess as to where he was, but the outlook was not optimistic. Most rumors had him dead, killed in a wild suicide attack against those who had killed his young wife. In any case, he was not here, in Konoha, where he and his old boisterous attitude were sorely needed.

Sakura and a few others were all that were left of the Rookie 9 and their sensei. But they rarely saw each other; as some of the last of Konoha's best ninja, they were always at work. Sakura was the only one who stayed in Konoha for any length of time, because she was the head medic at the hospital. She missed companionship, she missed being with those ninja who she had known back when things were better, back when there was hope and life in the world. Perhaps, then, it wasn't so strange that she felt the loneliness abate when she was with Itachi; in a way he was a connection to that time, too. He was… a familiar face, a constant that has been there the whole time. He wouldn't look at her blankly when she talked about Kakashi-sensei and his ridiculously wayward hair. Because he'd known Kakashi, too. He remembered Konoha _before_, too.

And something about him was… It was hard to explain, but with him, she felt more like her old one-part-cheerful-two-parts-kick-ass self than the newer quiet, solemn, world-weary person she'd become. Horribly ironic and somewhat worrisome, as he was probably one of Konoha's worst enemies. Yet there it was. She liked bickering with him, because it reminded her of the old days with Naruto and Sai.

Sakura sighed, and glanced at the clock. It was time for her meeting with the council.

* * *

They reacted much the way Sakura expected them to. And, supposedly, the way Itachi expected them to. Sakura had told them what he'd said: "Kisame is dead."

They'd glanced at each other, exchanged a few murmurs.

"Excellent, this means their numbers are down to just four. They're weakening."

"Indeed. We may soon be able to eliminate them once and for all."

"Haruno," said one of the higher-ranking elders, "Gather more information from the Subject. Anything he might know of the Akatsuki's current whereabouts, and the locations of their bases."

"I'll start at once," Sakura said, perhaps a little tersely. She bowed and left.

* * *

"Why'd you do it?" she asked him shortly. Her hands were clenched at her sides to prevent her from seizing him by the collar and shaking the answer out of him.

"I'm afraid you'll have to be more specific. What exactly is the question in reference to?" he asked, nonplussed. Sakura gritted her teeth before grudgingly admitting that the question was a valid one. She could have been asking about a lot of things he'd done.

"Why'd you tell me your partner had been killed?"

That little gesture, the almost-shrug. "Perhaps it was a warning; it was a Leaf Hunter-nin who killed him."

"If it was a Leaf-nin, why didn't we know about it already?" she asked suspiciously.

"He never had the chance to report the hit," Itachi responded casually.

"What, you killed him? And you think Konoha should pay for Kisame's death?" she said. Itachi almost-shrugged.

"Bull," Sakura said. "You didn't come for revenge when we killed your other comrades."

"They weren't my partners," he responded simply. Sakura narrowed her eyes at him. Could he be the sort to want to avenge a close comrade's death? He didn't seem it, but since all of Sakura's presumptions about him had been systematically crushed, she guessed he could be telling the truth.

"You were friends?"

He tipped his head to the side as if puzzling at the term. "No, nothing so strong as that. Just comrades. There was mutual respect between us, and a common goal. Kisame was a good fighter, and one of the better choices of Akatsuki to have at your back."

"You don't seem like the vengeful type," Sakura said, deciding on it. "You're too practical, too logical. You know the risks you take and your partner took. You understand the fragility of a shinobi's life. While you wouldn't take it easy on any Leaf-nin you came across, you wouldn't put any more weight on killing them than before Kisame's death."

Itachi's expression did not alter, but Sakura somehow got the feeling that a tiny smile hovered behind the mask.

"Well read," he said. "So why do you think I told you?"

"I…" Sakura paused. "For many reasons, none of which make total sense. You're subtler, more elaborate in your actions that should be possible."

"I take pains to ensure my actions are not readily analyzed."

"Well thanks for that," Sakura said. "I really _appreciate _it."

"Ah. There is that frustration again…"

"You're annoying," Sakura said before realizing the irony of the statement. Her lips twisted in bitter humour and huff escaped her.

"Something amuses you?"

"It's just that… the last time I heard someone say that, it was being said to _me_. It was just a little ironic is all," she replied. She wasn't going to say who said it to her…

"Ah."

…though judging by the inflection in his response, he could guess with some accuracy. Sakura didn't even bother to curse his perceptiveness this time; it seemed pointless. She looked down at him- wrapped in chains, half-blind, and forced by the power of the chakra-wards in the cell and on his manacles to sit immobile in the chair- and felt a little sad.

"What will you do now?" It slipped out. She didn't really mean to ask it aloud.

He went, if possible, stiller. And carefully said: "What do you mean?"

"Now that your brother is… dead. What will you do?" In for a lion, in for a lamb… It was kind of hard to say it, though. But not because she feared Itachi's reaction to the question. More that it was still painful to admit that they had failed and that Sasuke was dead. Their only comfort was that he'd taken Orochimaru out with him.

Presently, Itachi was sitting silently, his eyes closed. He didn't seem inclined to answer her at all.

_:It _was_ a stupid question,: _Sakura admitted to herself. _:It's not like he has to _do _anything about Sasuke's death… I just thought that he might've left him alive for a reason. And now Sasuke's dead, so…:_

"Nevermind, it was a stupid question," she muttered.

"I expect," he said quietly, "that now I'll have to find some other way to die."

Sakura's breath stilled in her throat. _:What…?:_

"I don't understand," she said. Itachi shook his head slowly.

"No. You wouldn't."

* * *

No. You wouldn't. No, you wouldn't. No you wouldn't.

What the hell did that _mean_? Sakura found herself consumed by that little comment, though she'd left the puzzling Uchiha behind as she returned to her apartment.

_:Did he do this on purpose?: _she wondered, a little irritably. _:Is this some ploy to undermine my sanity? This _is_ Uchiha Itachi we're talking about. He could be trying some fancy psychological stuffs to increase his chances of escaping. Make the weak little kunoichi jailor feel sorry for him, persuade her he's harmless… well, mostly… and then- bam!- he pulls a fast one, kills me, and escapes.:_

"Yeah, that sounds about right," she sighed, rubbing her forehead with one hand. Glancing out the window, she sighed again. It was well into the night, but she had no desire to go to bed. She knew what dreams awaited her. Thanks but no thanks, real life was horrible enough.

One more sigh (third time's the charm?) and she tipped her chair back to rest on two legs. Letting her head rest on the back, she stared at the cracked ceiling of her kitchen blankly. If it weren't for the chance that she'd be called to the hospital for some midnight emergency, she would have drunk herself into a stupor.

Or maybe not. She'd never drunk alone, and didn't want to start now. It would probably only serve to highlight the absences in her life. She _used _to drink with Tsunade-shishou, or Naruto, or a dozen other friends and comrades…

Sakura glanced over at the table in her adjoined living room, where a photoframe lay, face-down, on the surface. Had it been upright, she would have seen the smiling (mostly) faces of Team 7. She'd tipped it over sometime last week, after a particularly taxing day at the hospital left her drained and the deepest into depression she'd ever gone.

Standing up, she moved over to it and almost reverently set it back up.

"Maybe I'll go pay you a visit, Kakashi-sensei," she whispered. His was the only name on the memorial, since Sasuke had died a missing-nin and the subject of adding Naruto's to the list hadn't been broached. Sakura wondered if that was because nobody wanted to admit that he was probably dead, or if the wretches on the council didn't want the Kyuubi Jinchuuriki's name on the memorial.

_:Now, now. That's an awfully harsh thought, Sakura,: _she chided herself. _:You shouldn't think such things about your village council. Not even if they're true.:_

She winced, because she knew that it was. True, that is. In growing closer to Naruto over the years, she'd realized just how much prejudice he'd had to grow up with. It made her pretty upset, and had prompted her to treat him even more considerately. At least when he wasn't doing something idiotic.

Her heart squeezed in a sudden onslaught of loneliness and grief. Was he dead like the whispers said? And if not, why hadn't he come back? She was alone… Left behind by _everyone _this time, and with no prospect of seeing them again, at least not in this life.

She swallowed the lump in her throat and opened her eyes wide to the dry night air, hoping the tears in them would not fall.

With her eyes open so wide, it was hard to miss the fact that her feet had- of their own accord- led her to the prison instead of the memorial. She blinked at the building, and turned to make her way to the _right _place.

Then she hesitated. Looked back at the prison. Hesitated. Turned and went inside.

* * *

Uchiha Itachi was seated (of course, the chakra-wards forced him to) in the chair when she reached his cell, his face turned to the door with some inquisitive expectation.

"Hello Haruno-san," he said as if she visited him in the middle of the night all the time.

"Can you see me?" she asked in slight surprise; she had thought his vision somewhat worse than that.

He made a small noise that Sakura couldn't quite fit an adjective to. "No, but I imagine you are the only pink-haired ninja who would come here."

"Oh," she said, a little chagrined. Of course, he could still see colors. She cleared her throat.

"You knew Kakashi-sensei when he was ANBU, right?"

His head tilted ever so slightly as he considered the question. "I did."

"Would… Would you tell me what he was like?" she asked, very quietly.

"This is strange information your council wants you to glean from me," he remarked after a pause. Sakura swallowed.

"This is not for them. It's for me. I want to know," she admitted. He was quiet for so long she thought he wouldn't answer her. And then:

"Why do you ask me?"

"Because he didn't have enough time to tell me himself. Because you are the only one left," Sakura said, before she could check herself. She nearly bit her tongue.

_:Why the hell'd you tell him that? He's probably analyzed that and had twenty new angles to come at you from. Hello, he's an enemy, not your friend!:_

But there was no taking it back. So Sakura folded her arms across her chest and tried to look formidable as she stared at Itachi.

In that moment, when he unerringly met her jade eyes with his dark ones, she could have sworn he saw more than any half-blind man had any right to. She marshaled her discipline and refused to flinch her gaze away. Itachi's face was solemn as he held his gaze unwaveringly on her.

"My Kakashi-sempai is, I would imagine, nearly identical to your Kakashi-sensei. They say he was different when he was younger, but I did not know him them. He'd already changed to the person you knew him as. You know how he came into possession of his Sharingan?"

"Yes. He had time enough to tell me that, at least."

Itachi nodded. "They say that was his turning point. He changed after that; in what ways I never heard. What I knew of Hatake Kakashi was that he was a skilled shinobi, quick to adapt to combat situations, ingenious in his use of jutsu, powerful. He was able to take on solo missions easily, but he was also a favored choice for team missions because of his devotion to his teammates' wellbeing. He acted something of the fool outside of missions, but when situations arose, he was one of the first to be ready for action. His laziness was a mask."

"That sounds like Kakashi-sensei…" Sakura whispered. Itachi paused.

"Are you crying?"

"No," Sakura denied, wiping her cheeks surreptitiously. There was another pause, in which Sakura could hear his disbelief.

"Why are you here?" he asked then, his voice a little cooler.

"I..." she said, uncertainly.

"You should leave." His voice was definitely ice cold now, disapproving, almost… angry?

_:But Uchiha Itachi doesn't _show _emotions.: _Except, of course, he seemed to be showing them now, if only very slightly. Sakura didn't protest; she just quietly went to the door and left.

* * *

When she thought about it, she found herself again perplexed by the Uchiha's actions. It didn't really make sense for him to get so angry with her just because she'd asked him an innocent question and had cried in his presence. Did he think it was contrived? Did he just hate when people showed their emotions that much? What was it?

_:You know what? It bothers him? He thinks it's contrived? Fine. We'll just give him what he wants,: _she thought, in a rush of anger. She stalked off to the prison.

She stalked down to Itachi's cell, stalked inside, stalked right up to him seated in the chair and said tightly: "I'm going to hit you."

The crack of her palm across his cheek rang out, and before the echoes had even faded, she'd pulled back again and hit him with a right-hook. She let him sit there, feeling the throb and the sting of her blows for several moments.

"You are finally acting like an interrogator. I approve," he said after regaining some motor function in his jaw. It was beginning to swell.

"Kakashi-sensei is dead because we didn't know enough about the Akatsuki to fight them effectively," she said. "I'm going to heal your jaw, and then you're going to tell me what you know."

"Why?"

"Because as much as you hate Konoha, you respected Kakashi-sensei. And as much as you don't want to admit it, there are other shinobi like him in this village. Your information will help them survive this war though Kakashi-sensei did not."

"I have to say I did not expect you to do this," Itachi said, voice slightly distorted.

"Do what? Do everything in my power to help save the lives of my comrades?" Sakura asked harshly. She was still angry with him, though there was an itch in her fingers to heal his face.

"No," he answered. "I didn't expect you to use your weakness as an excuse to become angry with me."

Sakura stiffened, and then realized he was right. It had been stupid of her to come here last night, stupid of her to ask him what she had, stupid of her to allow herself to cry in front of him. Never show an enemy your weakness. It was practically rule number one, or at least one of the top ten. And she'd blown it hugely. She'd _sought out_ her enemy- the enemy she was supposed to be interrogating, the enemy she should have been showing her ruthless, intimidating side to- and had knowingly asked a question that had the very large possibility of making her cry. Stupid. And then when she was angry and ashamed at herself, she shifted around and put the blame on him, got angry with him.

_:Well done. I think you've shown yourself to be quite a competent kunoichi to him. He'll definitely tell you everything you want to know, now.:_

Sakura sighed and knelt before him, reaching for his face. He didn't flinch as her finger brushed his swollen jaw. It wasn't bruising yet, but that probably meant the bruises were deep and the blood hadn't leaked close enough to the dermal surface to be visible. She pushed her chakra into his face and cleared away the damage, bringing the swelling down and touching up the bruised bone and ruptured capillaries.

"Why did you even answer my question last night?" she asked. "I was a fool to ask it, and you would have been completely within your rights to point it out."

"Perhaps because what you said was true; I did respect Kakashi-sempai." Itachi paused before adding: "And I did not see any harm in answering, at least until you started to weep."

She stared at him, brow furrowed, before saying tightly: "I have not understood anything you've ever said, nor have I understood anything you've ever done."

He didn't respond, but that was fine; she wasn't looking for a response. Beside, he'd already given one, after a fashion.

_No. You wouldn't._

"You remind me somewhat of your brother- letting your silence speak for you, speaking cryptically when you do open your mouth," Sakura said. "But… Sasuke was more predictable than you."

"Yes," Itachi said after a beat. "He was. He made no illusion what he was after."

"Power," Sakura nodded. "Tell me, Uchiha Itachi. What is it _you _are after?"

He gave a little smile, and Sakura was struck by how natural it looked on his face. "Even though you ask me that, I do not think you really expect me to answer."

"No," Sakura agreed. "I didn't. Not really. But, it was worth a try."

"Hm."

* * *

Sakura didn't get much out of him after that; words just kind of flew away before she could voice them, and she ended up standing there for several minutes in perfect silence. Then she left, realizing she needed to check in with the council.

It wasn't going particularly well. But then, when did it ever?

"What have you learned since our last meeting?" asked one of the elders. Sakura stood straight-backed before them, a pose becoming very familiar to her. She was also becoming used to the way she had to speak to them. She stared straight ahead and answered calmly and deferentially.

"He respected Hatake Kakashi."

There was a murmur of surprise tinged with outrage. One voice rose to ask what they all wanted to know: "_That _is all you've found out? You are wasting our time, Haruno-san. Perhaps we should relieve you of this duty, as it seems to be beyond you."

"And just who will you replace me with?" Sakura demanded, and the council glanced at each other uneasily, knowing as she knew that there was no one else even as close to being qualified for interrogation as she. "Will you put some raw ninja in there with him? He'd either eat them alive or they'd just kill him out of inexperience, without getting any information whatsoever; it's a difficult thing to keep a prisoner alive in these situations. Besides, what I've gleaned _is _important."

"Oh? And how is it important, Haruno-san?" asked an elder.

_:Yes, how is it important?: _repeated a little sarcastic voice at the back of Sakura's mind. She thought quickly.

"That Uchiha Itachi respected Kakashi, a prominent Leaf shinobi, indicates a small breech in his defenses. If I can persuade him that there are other ninja in Konoha with the same admirable characteristics as Kakashi, he may be more responsive to questions." She nearly choked at the complete crap she'd just pulled out of the air. Hopefully, the council, with their complete ignorance of the way interrogations work, would buy it.

"You can do something more with this information?" asked a councilmember.

"Yes," Sakura said with confidence she did not feel. She didn't really know how she'd keep out of trouble next time she had to present to the council.

Inspiration struck suddenly. Hurriedly, before she could be dismissed, or chewed out some more, Sakura said: "I'd like to ask permission to enter the Uchiha clan grounds."

_:Don't explain yourself until they ask you to. Making explanations and excuses preemptively makes you seem to have a guilty conscious… They will wonder why you seems so defensive and you'll end up drawing their attention to the reasons why they might want to deny you…:_

The abrupt silence that descended spoke of the council's surprise. Slowly, one of the more influential members leaned forward: "Why might you want to go there?"

Sakura took a breath.

"I want to develop a more efficient method for interrogating Itachi. I want to see if I might find something in the Uchiha compound to give me more insight into how he ticks. Maybe there is something I can use as leverage there."

There was moment in which Sakura was left to stand there as the council discussed the possibility. Just as Sakura was about to give in to her nerves and start fidgeting, all eyes were turned to her.

"Very well, you have permission to enter the Uchiha grounds."

"Thank you," Sakura said with the proper deference.

* * *

The Uchiha grounds had remained closed off and abandoned since the massacre- though Sasuke had survived, he did not (understandably) return to the home and location where all his family was slaughtered. He'd simply allowed the village to close up the area, and never spoke of the large stretch of land that was passed on to him as the 'last' Uchiha.

What this meant was that the buildings were in disrepair, the painted Uchiha clan symbols on walls and signs faded, the once manicured gardens overgrown, and the streetlights broken. The streets were empty and there was an eerie mood in the air despite the warm mid-afternoon sun. Sakura was glad she hadn't come at night; she would have been much too creeped out.

As it was, she still found herself involuntarily softening her steps as if afraid to disrupt the graveyard-like silence. She also kept her head on a swivel, scanning with sharp attention her surroundings as she made her way through the streets of the compound. She'd looked up a map of the Uchiha grounds before coming here, so she found the Clan Head's home relatively easily.

The door opened, swinging freely on its hinges. Sakura tried to ignore her imagination, which was currently supplying her with gruesome images of corpses and bones strewn about the floor inside.

_:The village buried the bodies and cleaned up,:_ she told herself firmly. :_Don't be ridiculous.:_

She hesitated at the _genkan _before taking her footwear off and tucking it neatly to the side and stepping further into the house. The place may have been dirty and in disrepair, but she would not cross the line and step inside while still shod. It seemed disrespectful to the dead inhabitants of the house.

But as she moved through the rooms, she began wishing a little that she'd kept her shoes on. The tatami mats covering the floor were in varying states of decay, and sported inches of dust on them that puffed up in her wake. She held a hand over her nose and mouth to keep from inhaling clumps. She knew she was getting filthy, but her curiosity was growing exponentially with every step.

_:So this was Sasuke's home. This was where he grew up…: _It made her melancholic, a little. She made her way to the kitchen, and looked around avidly. She dragged a hand lightly over the counters, fingertips leaving a shining line in the film of dust. In another room, a painted screen showed glints of gold and silver paint through the grey veil of neglect and time. Sakura made her way through the house room by room, leaving crisscrossing paths of footsteps through the dust.

It was difficult to say which room Itachi or Sasuke had used as a bedroom; they were all pretty lacking in identity. A common motif in the house was the fan clan symbol. It was painted, carved, or embossed everywhere, subtly or not. Small wonder why Uchihas seemed so fanatical about their clan; they were trained early by the saturated environment.

Sakura took one last look around the room she was in and started to move out the door. It was then that she noticed it. It was just a tiny little thing, noticeable because she'd turned her head just right with the light shining through the broken _fusuma _just right to catch it- a little glimpse of lighter wood on the darker wood of the doorframe.

It had been one of the many Uchiha fans, carved delicately into the stained wood of the doorframe. But someone had taken an edge to it and inscribed a perfect little 'X' through it, barely noticeable, very lightly done. Sakura hunkered down real close to it so that her eyes nearly crossed to look at it. Her brow furrowed.

The last time Sasuke had been in this house was before the massacre; unlikely that he would have done this. It must have been Itachi. Although… it wasn't very like him, either.

"He _was_ younger," Sakura admitted aloud. "Maybe he didn't always act as aloof as he does now. For all I know, he could have done this when he was four."

She scanned the rest of the frame, but there were no other fans engraved in it. In fact, there were no other Uchiha fans in the room- making it a clear outlier for clan-symbol density.

_:This had to have been Itachi's room, at least when he was older and started separating himself from his clan and Konoha,: _Sakura realized. She brushed her finger over the crossed-out fan.

After that, she went over the whole house inch by inch, though the light from outside was fading. Eventually, she scrounged up a lamp from one of the rooms and lit it, continuing on. She'd told the council she'd wanted to look for anything she could use a leverage in Itachi's interrogation, but hadn't really meant it. She hadn't actually intended on searching the place so thoroughly, but her curiosity had gotten the better of her.

_:Sorry Sasuke,: _she thought to his imaginary, disgruntled ghost. _:I don't mean to disturb your family's peace, but…:_

Something went scuttling across one of the holes in the tatami, a little black flash of movement that zipped out and back under the edges of the old mat. Sakura bit back an undignified squeak and forced herself not to jump.

"Of course," she said in a voice that only trembled a very little bit, "There _would _be pests in an abandoned building. Duh."

Carefully, with her toe, she lifted the edge of the mat, cringing in anticipation. What she saw made her face go slack in surprise. The mat dropped back down. She lifted it back up, this time crouching and seizing it with her hand, tossing the crumbling tatami to the side.

Those were hinges. Those were _hinges_. _:This is a secret door.:_


	3. 3 Underneath the Underneath

_Yep, so here's the next installment of this story. Just to make it clear, I don't really know where this is going, so... I don't know how long it will be or how far it will go. Just so you all know._

_Anyway, thanks to everyone who reviewed, faved, and all that jazz. ^_^ Please enjoy the next bit.  
_

* * *

After a moment of gaping, Sakura gathered her thoughts and ran her fingers lightly around the edges of the hidden trapdoor. She couldn't see any traps or feel any chakra-wards. It seemed like just any other door... it just happened to be set in the floor, hidden beneath tatami mats. But yeah, just like any other door.

After a cautious check for anything that might explode, stab, or spray when she opened the thing, Sakura slid her fingers up to the little handles that had been carved into it and lifted. It opened with a puff of stale air and dust.

Stairs descended down into gloom, the light from her lamp reaching only so far down into the deep darkness of the hole. Sakura licked her lips. Should she go down there without knowing where it led? She extended her senses, and, feeling nothing, tentatively put her weight on the first step. Nothing bad happened, so she stepped down to the next step, and so on. She reached the bottom alive and untouched. Evidently, the Uchiha hadn't set up traps to dissuade intruders from wandering into their secret room. Either that or the traps had been set with chakra and had dissolved since there had been no one to manage them.

Sakura still couldn't help the hum of adrenaline in her blood as she walked warily down the little tunnel at the foot of the stairs. It was very dark; her lamp was too small to illuminate much beyond the first two yards ahead of her. And she could hear scuttlings and tiny scuffles in the shadows.

_:It's just mice or roaches or something,: _she thought reassuringly to herself. The whole deal kind of gave her the heebie-jeebies, though.

At last she reached the end of the tunnel (it was short, granted, but in the dark and half-tensed in anticipation of an attack of some sort, it seemed much longer), and the narrow way opened into a smallish chamber. There was some sort of altar or podium at one end, which was piled with a number of scrolls. They'd been treated against water damage and had the lingering traces of anti-pest chakra wards. They were pretty well preserved, but for the dust on them and the slightly brittle quality of the paper. Sakura gingerly looked them over.

Her eyebrows rose to nearly disappear into her hair. The scrolls were detailed descriptions and observations of the Uchiha Sharingan, collected by the clan over the centuries. There were also clan genealogies, detailed profiles, and what looked like a half-completed listing of Konoha's other prominent clans' _kekkei genkai. _Sakura stared at the scrolls she held in her hands- the ones regarding the Sharingan, and hesitated.

She was very curious as to what the scrolls could teach her about the bloodlimit, but… Itachi Uchiha was the only one left alive who had it. It was not likely Sakura would ever need to know much about it. Learning what was contained in the scrolls would be pointless, unless it could somehow be applied to other techniques and situations.

…Then again, it certainly wouldn't hurt if she just took those scrolls back to her apartment for safe-keeping… Sakura smirked, withdrew a blank scroll from her hip-pouch, and sealed the Sharingan scrolls into it before tucking it back away. Just as she was reaching for her lamp, a mouse- or something- bolted across the floor, over her bare foot, and into the dimness on the other side of the chamber.

"Gek!" Sakura made an odd noise that was a hastily swallowed yelp of surprise. She held the lamp out in the direction the mouse-thing had gone. It seemed to have ducked into a small crack in the stone wall of the…

_:Wait…: _Sakura's mind went blank in complete disbelief. _:Again? More? Really?:_

One part of the stone wall was _not _stone, as became apparent the second the light from Sakura's lamp shone on it- it was wood, paper, and plaster. The fake wall was still mostly intact, but age and neglect had allowed the paint and paper to discolor, and mice or some other pest had chewed holes through it. She could see clearly through the holes that there was a space behind it.

"Trust a ninja clan- trust the Uchiha clan- to have a secret compartment within a secret chamber," Sakura said. The fake wall was masterfully made, although it had fallen into disrepair with everything else, crafted and painted so that it would have matched the stone. Doubtless, it would have fooled even the most observant ninja, even one gifted with a _kekkei genkai _involving sight… Which was probably the point. Sakura knew that the ninja clans were almost fanatically devoted to secrecy, particularly between other clans.

Considering the implications of the fact that it was a secret compartment inside the secret chamber of a secretive ninja clan, Sakura was very careful in her approach of the fake wall. The mice and pests seemed not to have a problem, but that didn't necessarily mean there weren't safeguards or traps to catch the unwary snoop. Indeed, Sakura safe-sprang three before she was confident she could move the wall out of her way and get into the compartment behind it without getting a poison senbon in the face, so to speak.

In any case, after having neutralized the three traps, she wedged her fingernails under the edges of the fake wall and yanked.

In hindsight, that probably wasn't the best idea. The years-old, pest-and-water-damaged façade gave a protesting crack and two pieces broke off in her hands. The yank had dislodged it from its stays, so the rest of the wall wavered, then leaned drunkenly outward, and then fell. Sakura skipped out of the way, and it fell at her feet. More pieces broke off, and paint flakes scattered.

She didn't notice so much, though. Her attention was all for the revealed compartment. There were three scrolls in it, all in much better condition than their environment should have afforded. Sakura could only suppose that they'd been protected by chakra, so she inspected them by sight first. She hadn't fallen for a trap yet, and damned if she was going to fall for one now.

It appeared, however, that the Uchiha had believed that, if you'd gotten into the compound, found the secret chamber, and found and survived the fake wall, you were either supposed to be there or that you'd catch any other traps anyway so it'd be pointless to stick more on the scrolls. In short, they hadn't bothered to booby-trap the scrolls. The only lingering chakra on them was for preservation, like the other scrolls that she'd found on the altar/podium.

She took them and her lamp over to the podium, and opened the first one.

'_Report on Uchiha Clan members active in Konoha forces-- _Konoha Keimu Butai, _ANBU, and general ninja ranks.'_ She read. It was a very long listing of all the Uchiha who worked for the major police and military groups in the village, their standings, their abilities, their general profiles… Sakura blinked and set that scroll aside.

The second scroll contained lots of captioned numbers and calculations, some of which Sakura frowned at, wondering exactly what was meant and what they were. She picked up the next scroll and opened it.

A few moments later, it fell from her nerveless fingers.

Had she been of a slightly weaker constitution, she would have fallen back on her butt.

The third scroll was a list of influential Konoha citizens, like councilmembers, former councilmembers, and high-ranking ninja. The Yondaime and Sandaime Hokage were both included. For each entry, the scroll had a list of stats- such as strengths, weaknesses, and ninja-rank (if applicable)- and then a short comment. There were a few varieties of this ending note. For both Hokage entries, the ending comment was "Inherently unapproachable. Dangerous. Eliminate quickly upon initiation of operation". Through the Yondaime's entry a thin black line struck out the words, and a single word amended: "Deceased."

Sakura scanned a few other entries— Iida Juunyo "accepts bribes. Will not pose obstacle" … Yamanaka Inoichi "Konoha-loyal. Dangerous. Eliminate upon initiation of operation" … Sarutobi Asuma "Sandaime relation. Dangerous. Eliminate upon initiation of operation" … Beppuuro Kimiko "Opportunistic. Will not post obstacle".

Iida and Beppuuro, Sakura knew, had been councilmembers back when she was a kid. They'd been of the group that always opposed and complained to/about the Hokage.

It didn't take a Nara to figure out what the three scrolls were about.

The Uchiha clan had been planning a coup.

It was surprising, a little ground-shaking in Sakura's opinion, but… It was all here. The first scroll showed them where their clan members were positioned in terms of having power in the village—they would have been able to use the information to plan a very swift very thorough overthrow, if they coordinated all the Uchiha members. The second scroll, Sakura realized now, was a careful calculation of what possible losses they might incur, what the probability was they could succeed without crippling their clan, how much it would take monetarily to buy off those who could be bought off. The third scroll said who would be bribed, who would be killed in the course of the coup, and who could not pose a problem one way or the other.

The fact the Yondaime had been crossed off as deceased and Beppuuro Kimiko, who had died of old age the year Sakura had taken the Chuunin exams, had not put the date of this potential Uchiha coup around the time of the massacre.

And that… made for some interesting thoughts.

The Uchiha clan had been planning a coup… and coincidentally, were slaughtered before it could occur… How very very interesting…

Sakura stared at the incriminating scrolls with wide eyes. Her head was metaphorically spinning. The implications were impossible, ridiculous, astonishing. And, a quiet little voice at the back of her mind whispered, so perfect. There it was, all tied up neatly for her- all the inconsistencies that had plagued her, all the illogical things that had niggled at her, everything just explained prettily.

It made her wary. Such a lovely explanation, so tidy. And right there for her to find. Sakura did believe in coincidence, and chance, but this was just ludicrous. It was hardly credible, despite how much sense it made. Or perhaps because of that. Real life wasn't quite so polished. Really, what were the chances that Sakura would come here, find the chamber, notice the fake wall, survive the traps, _and _figure out what the scrolls' contents meant? Worse than zero, that's what.

She wanted to speak to someone and verify her suspicions. But whom could she ask? The council? What if the council hadn't even known about the potential coup? What if Itachi had acted on his own to eliminate the Uchiha clan? Of course, there was the flip side of that: What if the council had ordered him to do it?

Sakura swallowed thickly, disturbed. Why would the council have had him kill his own family? Surely they could have sent others, never mind the fact that Itachi was the best suited in terms of skills. He wasn't the best suited mentally; he was too close to the problem. It was like her with this interrogation, Sakura recognized. She was certainly qualified if you considered how much she knew of how the human body worked and how to help or hurt it, and her classes on psychology. But when you looked at her recent emotional and psychological conditions, she was probably the worst pick. Not that there were many evaluators to determine those stats. Not that the council would acknowledge the reports as pertinent, had they had them. They were much too concerned with production, getting missions done despite the toll they took on the remaining Konoha nin. Sakura never thought she would miss the old council, back from her Genin days, but at least they had realized ninja were human.

No. Sakura had a feeling that it wouldn't help an ounce to talk to the council about this. More than likely, they'd accuse her of being led on or corrupted by her prisoner, and they'd take her off the active roster or maybe even incarcerate her.

So then should she ask Itachi himself? Oh yeah, good idea. 'Hey Uchiha-san, when you killed your family, did you do it on orders from Konoha, or was it all your own idea?' Besides the obvious lack of tact in such an approach, there was the possibility that the scrolls _didn't _imply what she thought they did. After all, there was no title "Plans for Taking Over Konoha" on any of them. She could just be jumping to conclusions… Albeit they were very logical conclusions and the fact that the third scroll talked about 'eliminating' certain influential figures was about as good as having an overt Project Uchiha-Coup heading.

Sakura couldn't make up her mind if she wanted to believe what she'd read. On the one hand, it made her feel a bit better about her inability to interrogate Itachi properly, with the torture aspect. Instead of it being a case of her cringing away from hurting an enemy in order to save Konoha lives, it became her hesitating to hurt a former Konoha shinobi who had already sacrificed his family, his happiness, and his future for the village. Itachi had committed the greatest sin in order to protect the village, it would be wrong for her to torture him in the name of Konoha.

But on the other hand… If she decided to believe that Konoha had known of the coup and had ordered Itachi to take care of it… Then that would mean the council and the Hokage lied to them all. And who else would have known? Would Kakashi-sensei have known? He was still in ANBU then, right? Would ANBU have known? Did everyone in Sakura's life lie to her? Lie to Sasuke? Oh god, _Sasuke_. If he hadn't thought his brother just killed his family in cold blood, would his life have been different? Would he have gone to Orochimaru? Would he have died?

Sakura took in a shaky breath. If what she'd found in the scrolls was true, she wasn't sure she'd be able to take it. Her life would crumble. Up to now, the thought of Konoha, of having to serve and protect her village, had been all that was keeping her alive.

_:Is this my life? Is this what my life is? Lies?: _She felt nauseous. Staring at the shadows in the corners of the Uchiha secret chamber, Sakura fought the overwhelming emotions that roiled in her. She wished she'd never come to the clan's compound. She wished she'd never been assigned the Itachi interrogation. She wished she'd never become a kunoichi. Then she wouldn't have met Naruto and Sasuke, and Kakashi and Tsunade. She never would have lost them. She never would have learned of the pain of going out with a full three-man team and coming back with two, or alone. She wouldn't have to deal with the possibility that she had killed, had lost comrades, to a village that lied to its citizens.

"Damn them. Damn them," she whispered, thumping her fist against the altar/podium's surface. Her eyes burned.

What could she do now? She was at a loss. If she didn't have anyone to turn to to verify her suspicions, should she just pretend everything was the same? _Could _she?

_:I'll have to,: _she realized. _:I'll have to pretend I haven't found these scrolls, or else the council will know. And actually, I don't think they'd take it very well.:_

Point of fact, they might decide to neutralize her, make sure the secret remained a secret. The state Konoha was at these days made this response likely… The council already didn't much like her, as they hadn't liked Tsunade-shishou. Even though she was one of the most skilled ninja remaining, the council wouldn't be particularly merciful if they decided she posed a threat. The council had already seized control of ANBU and the general nins after Tsunade's death- they had decided to take over the Hokage's position instead of appointing a new one- and it wasn't so much of a stretch from that sort of government restructuring to start political executions.

_:Oh god.: _Sakura realized with some horror. _:I'm thinking as if my loyalty's been compromised. I… I can't do this.:_

She shivered. _:I have to get out of here.:_

"Oh!" she gasped then. _:The council knows I've come here! They might suspect I've found something like this… I'll have to lie… and it'll have to be very convincing…:_

Sakura eyed the three scrolls that were causing so much trouble. She couldn't leave them here. She left a trail to this spot; if the council sent someone after her and they found the scrolls, they'd know she'd found them. She couldn't put them back into the hiding place because the fake wall had been pretty much destroyed. They wouldn't _be _hidden anymore. She couldn't destroy them because… because she couldn't get rid of something so important. It would… destroy any chance Uchiha Itachi had to absolution. And Sakura could not do that. Even if he was all everybody had said he was- evil, cold-blooded, an unrepentant killer- she couldn't condemn him like that. It went against her moral person; after all, hadn't she given Sasuke chance after chance, despite what he did? Why not allow Itachi, who might actually be the one of the most loyal shinobi Konoha had ever seen, this second chance?

Sakura pulled out another seal scroll and sealed the three 'Uchiha Coup' scrolls into it. She'd bring them with her and hide them somewhere, or something. And if the council asked if she'd found anything… she'd admit to finding the secret chamber, the clan scrolls regarding the Sharingan, but not the coup scrolls. Yes… that might be best… The best lies were the ones that were closest to the truth.

Sakura gathered herself, and left the Uchiha compound with her soul in quiet anguish.

* * *

It was two fifteen in the morning and Sakura was lying flat on her back, spread-eagled, on the middle of her bed. She wasn't asleep, and hadn't been for the whole night. What she _had _been doing was staring into the darkness of her bedroom, thinking.

Her thoughts were all pretty much inconclusive. There was one bad hour near midnight when she had actually decided to take a kunai to herself, but she imagined what Naruto would have said, and dropped the idea in the end. Besides, she never ran away from her problems like that. Just because she was in a life crisis didn't mean she should just give up. Hence, the being awake at two fifteen.

Sakura slid her hand under her pillow, and wrapped her fingers around the scroll there. The Sharingan scrolls had been unsealed and set into her shelves along with her other books and scrolls, but the Coup scrolls… She didn't feel comfortable putting them anywhere, so she decided just to keep them always on her person, still sealed into the seal scroll. It seemed the safest place, considering her choices.

She put the back of her other hand against her forehead and stared through the lattice of her fingers. Nothing in her life made sense anymore. It was almost like a dream, formless, senseless, but imbued with the vague feeling that it _should _make sense. Perhaps if she thought about it for five more hours…

_:Che. I'm more likely to go insane than to experience an epiphany,: _she snorted. She rolled over and buried her face in the pillow, feeling the edge of the scroll against her cheek through the thin cushion. _:Isn't it some sort of curse to say to someone 'May you live in interesting times'?:_

She was pretty sure it was. That was happy. She wondered who'd slapped that one on her. Her life had been pretty interesting for a long while now, approximately since she'd started at the Academy and started training to become a kunoichi. _:Mom was right. Becoming a ninja has brought me nothing but trouble…_

_:Actually, it seems to have a similar effect on everybody's life. Nothing but trouble, trouble, trouble. It would be better if there were no ninja. Or better yet, no reason to have them. No wars. No assassinations. No power struggles.:_

She curled in on herself, a small pang of panic stabbing her again, as it had every so often throughout the night. _:What am I going to do? What can I do? Ah, Kakashi-sensei, Tsunade-shishou… I wish you were here to help me…:_

"Uchiha Itachi," she whispered into the muffling softness of her pillow. "What is your story? What is the truth of what happened to your clan?"

She turned to look at the glowing red numbers of her clock, and blinked until her tired eyes focused. Zero-two-forty. Early. But not too early.

Sakura extracted herself from her tangled sheets, grabbed a change of clothes, and disappeared into her bathroom. Five minutes later, she was locking up her apartment and heading toward the memorial park.

* * *

Sakura hadn't had much call to visit the memorial when she was younger; she didn't come from a large ninja clan, so she didn't have many relatives whose names were on it. But that had changed quickly and in a horrifyingly comprehensive manner as her friends began falling in droves. The first large loss she had sustained had been Ino, Shikamaru, Sai, and Yamato-sensei, who had all been killed on the same mission.

Sai had died first, utilizing his newfound understanding of friendship to sacrifice himself to save Ino from a particularly nasty jutsu. Yamato-sensei had gone next, a day later. The survivors had then aborted the mission and turned back to Konoha. Unfortunately, the joint Iwa and Sound Team followed them, to finish off Ino and Shikamaru one after the other. Shikamaru had actually lived for a while with his wounds, but had died a few hours away from Konoha. Sakura had staggered through the gates of the village alone, and more than three-quarters dead herself, and drained of chakra by her futile attempts at saving the lives of her Teammates. She hadn't been able to attend her friends' funerals; she'd still been under intensive care at the hospital. Kakashi, who had been on a mission himself, had gone straight to her hospital room upon his return, before even reporting in to Tsunade, before even changing out of his newly reclaimed ANBU gear. He understood only too well how she would feel, how much it would hurt that she'd missed the funerals, so he had carried her (she had still been immobile) to the memorial in his own arms. That had been the start to Sakura's frequent visits. Many of them coincided with Kakashi's visits, and over the following months… and the following funerals… Sakura and her former teacher had grown closer, so close that Kakashi had eventually told her the story of his Sharingan, a story he had not told to really anyone else.

And then he had died, in one of the direct attacks on Konoha itself. And since that same attack also took Tsunade-shishou, Neji, Shizune, and Lee- the last of the old crew- Sakura was left alone. All alone, save for one large pillar of stone, which kept her company for many hours every week.

"Hello everyone," she whispered as she settled into place, seiza, in front of the memorial. The moonlight picked out the carven characters of the rows upon rows of names, and with the ease of long practice, Sakura's eyes picked out those that she knew.

Sometimes, it was hard to believe that they were gone. And, sometimes, it was hard to remember they even existed. Their lives had been so brief, most of them. Dead before twenty. A pity. A waste. A sorrow.

Sakura leaned forward until her forehead rested against the smoothly polished stone. "I'm sorry."

It was part of her ritual, the apologizing. She did so in the most formal phrasing she knew, and meant it with all her heart. She still had not quite come to terms with the fact that she hadn't been able to save any of them. Not even the ones she had been with at the end; all her medic training had proved useless in so many cases.

Sakura straightened. "I miss you all, and I wish you were all still here with me… For many reasons. Kurenai-san, Asuma-san, I've refreshed the flowers on your son's grave. Ino, they were from some of the seeds you gave me from your family's shop. Hinata, there's still no news, one way or the other, about Naruto. I'm still hoping he's alive out there… Iruka-sensei, you'd be proud of some of your students, Chuunin already… S-sai… Kakashi… Sh-shizu-ne…"

Sakura began stumbling and stuttering as tears swelled in her throat. She stopped and fought back the flood. After some deep breaths and fist clenching, she managed to compose herself.

"I'll bring some incense next time," she promised finally, whispering a little hoarsely. "For now, please… Please watch over us and… please help me, guide me…"

She bowed her head, and kept vigil at the memorial until the sky began to lighten in the east. Then, rising from her position and ensuring that nothing condemning showed on her face, she went to the hospital to begin her shift. She tried not to think about having to go back to Itachi's cell once it was over; she still wasn't quite sure how she'd face him, with those damn scrolls weighing on her mind.

* * *

It seemed all too soon that the clock's hands clicked into place at three in the afternoon, and Sakura stared in slight dismay at the innocently ticking face for a while before admitting to herself that it was, indeed, time for her to punch out and head over to the prison. She felt her heart give a kick at the thought.

_:Calm,: _she told herself as she scrubbed the last of the harsh hospital soap off her hands. _:Are you a Jounin or aren't you? You shouldn't be afraid to face a bound prisoner… Even if he is an Uchiha… _the _Uchiha… Right! Shut up, brain! There's nothing to fear! I refuse to think of any reason I should be afraid. Or nervous. There's no reason, none at all.:_

The smirking, sarcastic part of her mind noted that she was rambling and that she clearly was both nervous and afraid. The rest of Sakura scowled and metaphorically plugged her ears.

Then the whole of Sakura clenched her jaw, squared her shoulders, and went striding toward the prison. She knew it was ridiculous to be afraid of Itachi himself, just because she found some rather incriminating scrolls in his clan's secret underground room. There was no guarantee that he knew about them, or even that they meant what she thought they meant. _:Even though the chances that he _did _and they _do _are very very high…:_

The Chuunin guards nodded her in without hesitation or question, which faintly disturbed Sakura, but not enough that she stopped to lecture them on the importance of keeping security tight even when you think you recognize the person seeking entry. She was set to deal with Itachi and, dammit, that was what she would do, without delay. If she stopped, she might lose her courage.

…Not that she had much of that, anyway. Although, she supposed that made every last drop of it important to keep.

The sight of Itachi seated in the chair, held in place by chakra, limbs draped with chains, greeted Sakura when she reached his cell. It was familiar to her, being the same sight she was greeted with every time she went there. His eyes went to her face as soon as she opened the door and entered.

"Hello Itachi-san," Sakura said.

"Haruno-san," he inclined his head minutely. She stood staring at him, her thoughts whirling once more. He stared back, but she didn't even realize his intense gaze was leveled on her. They stayed like that for several long moments, and then Itachi quirked an eyebrow.

"I believe this would be the time of the visit when you demand I tell you everything I know of the Akatsuki." His voice was low and gave away nothing of what he was feeling.

"Oh come on," Sakura replied automatically, "you know that the first rule of interrogations is to never be predictable."

There was that tiny, almost indiscernible shift in his expression- the one that wasn't a smile but somehow communicated a smile. His lips didn't curve upward at all, the corners of his eyes didn't crinkle, his cheek muscles didn't lift… and yet, if Sakura had to put a name to his expression, it _would _be 'smiling.'

_:How does he do that?: _she wondered.

"I have obtained permission from the council to search the Uchiha compound for anything that might aid in my interrogation here," she said. It was a very amateur method, saying something like that to see if he reacted suspiciously, but she didn't care. She suspected he was beyond all forms of interrogation; he'd never give up anything he didn't want to give up. And, true to form, he didn't even bat an eye at her announcement.

"I've already conducted a search, last night," she said, watching his reaction. Nothing. "Was your room the one with the crossed-out Uchiha fan?"

A slight reaction this time; his eyelashes flickered and the 'smile' dropped. But he still met her gaze calmly.

"You are observant to have noticed it," he said. "No one else ever has. Not even another Uchiha, not even with their Sharingan active."

"The light coming in through the broken _fusuma _hit it just right. Otherwise, I probably wouldn't have seen it either," she admitted. "The fan painted on the wall right outside the main house's front entrance was also damaged. Was that also you?"

She took his silence to be an admission. Her head lowered a little toward him as she said: "You were very angry with your clan at one point, weren't you, Itachi-san?"

His gaze was unwavering. "They were weak. They were holding me back. I resented them for that, but in the end, I overcame their limitations."

_:All his comments, everything he says… He doesn't really lie, as such. It's just that, when he speaks, everything is double-edged. It could mean more than one thing,: _she realized. Sakura felt a burst of admiration for his genius. Unconsciously, her hand went to her hip-pouch and felt the weight of the seal scroll that was in it.

"How many hide-outs do the Akatsuki have?"

Another 'smile.' "Trying to trip me up, Haruno-san?"

"Is it working?" she asked, instead of answering. Truth to tell, she knew that if they kept on the subject of his clan, she'd eventually trip up herself and mention something she shouldn't. And she didn't want to let him know outright that she'd found the secret room. That was her ace up her sleeve; she couldn't reveal it so early in the game.

"No," he responded presently. "But I will humor you anyway. The Akatsuki have many hide-outs. I do not know them all, but I do know that, in my present knowledge, we only had one in Grass Country."

"Grass Country? But we…" Sakura paused. They'd destroyed the Akatsuki base there just a year ago. She reviewed what he'd said exactly in her mind. 'We only had one in Grass Country' was past tense, so they didn't anymore, presumably. But he'd also said 'in my present knowledge' meaning that the Akatsuki situation in Grass Country might have changed.

_:As usual, very finely played,: _Sakura thought. _:With that information, he didn't tell us where Akatsuki is, thus not directly betraying them, but he did tell us some important information. We know now where they would be vulnerable. If we are intelligent and clever, we can use that.:_

"Why do you tell me these things? These things that could help us destroy the Akatsuki if we're just smart enough to figure out how to use the information," Sakura asked. "Were you sent here to lure us into a trap?"

"This is no trap. It doesn't need to be a trap," Itachi replied. "What I have told you is nothing; it will not help you defeat the Akatsuki, no matter how clever you are with it."

"So, through me, you're feeding the council empty information," Sakura summarized.

"Do they think it is empty?"

"No," Sakura murmured. "And that's exactly why you give it to them. It means nothing to you, but they believe it does."

"Astute observation," he said. She eyed him.

"You said before that you would have to find another way to die since Sasuke is gone. It seems to me that you could let yourself die right here by refusing to give up any information," she said. He was silent a moment, as if thinking it over. Then-

"Perhaps I wish to die in the service of my beliefs," he said, "and not so passively."

Sakura crossed her arms over her chest and continued regarding him thoughtfully.

"Psychologists everywhere shudder at the sound of your name," she informed him, tone dryly humorous, but face utterly serious. She sighed then, and continued before he could respond to that comment: "Have the guards been delivering your meals consistently?"

She'd noticed Itachi's gauntness and had wondered. She'd threatened to eliminate his food source, but she hadn't truly given thought to following through on it. The missing-nin watched her as she glanced around the cell as if expecting to see the remnants of past meals stacked neatly in the corners. When her jade eyes flicked back to him, he met the gaze without hesitation.

"They haven't, have they?" she guessed, correctly, her eyes narrowing. "Foolish little… I'll arrange something; you'll get a meal tonight."

He didn't respond; he was watching her rather curiously. Sakura inclined her head slightly- "Thank you for the information, Itachi-san" –and moved to leave.

She paused in the doorway as his voice reached her, "Haruno-san. What is different about today… that you call my by my given name?"

Sakura froze. _Shit_. She _had _been calling him 'Itachi' and not 'Uchiha' this whole time… Dammit. She had wanted to test his knowledge of the coup, to try to suss out what had really happened all those years ago, without actually telling him in any way that she knew about it. But, now he knew something had changed. Now he would be wary- _more _wary- in what he said to her. Shit.

Sakura searched for something to say, and found nothing. Without turning to let him see her face, which would probably have ruined things even more, she stepped out of the cell and re-engaged the locks.

Using his given name, even with an honorific, implied some level of closeness… at least more than using his familial name and honorific. In calling him 'Itachi-san' she'd as good as told him something had happened to make her feel closer to him, to empathize with him.

Sakura had to consciously force herself to walk calmly down the hall. Anything else would have felt too much like running away.


	4. 4 Clear Views

_So next chappie. Please enjoy.

* * *

_

As she did any other time she didn't want disturbing thoughts to gain foothold in her mind, Sakura drove them out by reading and studying the scrolls and books in her apartment. Most of them were medical in subject, though she did have a fair few scrolls of combat jutsu. She'd read them all, some multiple times, and felt the need to use something fresh and new to fend off the heavy thoughts that beat at the inside of her skull, so she took the opportunity to begin studying the Sharingan scrolls she'd taken from the Uchiha hidden chamber.

It was fascinating, and she could barely tear herself away from them. She drank in every word, her concerns regarding the coup and Itachi and the council vanishing as her scholarly mind became consumed with the subject of what had been Konoha's greatest bloodline limit. Evidently, the Uchiha line had somehow acquired several mutations that caused them to develop an interesting network of chakra pathways in their eyes. They also developed a high rod and cone count in their retinas. And the synapse network! Sakura had never seen anything like it! Granted, she'd never had the chance to examine the Hyuuga Byakugan, but… Sakura had a feeling that while it also would be incredible, the Sharingan would trump it. After all, the Byakugan only enhanced the sight. The Sharingan enhanced the sight and provided an outlet for chakra.

In any case, it was indisputable that the Sharingan was a marvel. With chakra infusing the cells of the retina, the rods and cones could detect things that a normal eye would never be able to. So too, the lens of the eye could be used to project _genjutsu _at those unfortunate to look into a Sharingan.

Sakura, in a frenzy of scholarly and professional excitement, pulled out some blank paper and began scribbling notes, thoughts, and questions.

Her intensity of study was so great that she nearly forgot to eat dinner. It was very late by the time she surfaced and glanced at the clock. Almost immediately, she jerked upright, eyes flashing wide.

"Shit! I need to bring Itachi his dinner!" she hissed, remembering suddenly her promise. She didn't much relish the thought of having to face him again so soon- he always seemed to manage to get her off balance- but she had promised, and she felt uncomfortable at the thought of him starving to death under her watch.

_:There's not even a question,: _she thought, setting her jaw, _:I'm bringing him something to eat tonight, one way or the other. The only thing is, where am I going to get it?:_

Sakura was sadly lacking in funds, and could barely afford to feed herself some weeks, let alone herself and an already-half-starved prisoner. That might pose a problem. Or… She could 'requisition' some food from the hospital kitchens. Contrary to popular belief, the food at the Konoha hospital was actually quite palatable. Not only that, but it was formulated by the medics and doctors to give the optimum nutrition possible in a reasonably sized meal. She didn't know for sure how long Itachi had been without food, but she was sure he'd benefit from that anyway.

She narrowed her eyes and inhaled through her nose in a deep, fortifying breath. Yes, that would be the best way to go, and if anybody took umbrage at her feeding him, she'd 'gently' explain that it was hard to torture information from someone when they were already weakened by hunger.

Sakura put away the Sharingan scrolls, with some reluctance (it had been a long time since she'd had the opportunity to study something so intricate and interesting, and she really just wanted to sit down with the scrolls for a good solid week), and stood. She brushed imaginary dust off her clothes, straightened them, and left her apartment.

* * *

"I'm sorry Haruno-san, but I can't spare any meals," the head of the hospital's kitchen told her with zero real regret. Sakura thought that perhaps the woman had had her job thrust upon her, because she sure didn't seem to be happy to be there.

"Surely there must be _something_," Sakura said. "I _work _here; I know the rules, but there has to be at least one spare meal that won't get used. Or half of one; maybe someone didn't eat their sandwich or something. I'll take that. I'll take yesterday's leftovers, as long as they're edible."

"I'm sorry, Haruno-san," said the woman again, as Sakura's temper spiked. The kunoichi's hand shot out, but the collar-snatch was hastily aborted into an expressive wave over the table of mealtrays waiting to go out.

"Listen to me," Sakura finally growled, her hand punctuating her speech with a light pound on the table after every point. "I have a patient. My patient needs to eat. My patient is very important to the council. Give. Me. A. Meal."

Unfortunately, Sakura couldn't really order the Head Cook to give her a meal, not when she wasn't on the clock. As Head Medic, Sakura had a lot of clout… but the Chief of Medicine outranked her, and he had ordered (ostensibly, Sakura had to admit, after all, Konoha's food supply wasn't quite what it used to be, thanks to the war) that food not be given out to people who didn't work at the hospital, nor to workers who were not on shift. Still… It _was _for a patient, and technically, Sakura was on duty… just not at the hospital… and not exactly as a medic… But that was beside the point.

"If you're not on shift, I can't give you food."

The woman really was stubborn. Sakura took a breath through her nose, trying not to haul back and punch the cook. She let the breath out slowly.

"Okay," Sakura said finally, stiffly. "Fine. Thanks for your time."

Back rigidly straight, Sakura turned on her heel and left the kitchen. And then outside the doors, she paused, scowling, until she determined that enough time had passed. After that, she flicked her hands through a few seals, her gestures curt with irritation that it had come to this.

A small poof of displaced air, and she was holding one of the mealtrays that had previously been sitting on the tabletop in the kitchen. She'd dropped a special tag on it earlier, when she was gesticulating wildly, after she'd realized she wasn't going to get a meal in any honest manner. She had considered that it would come to this- that she would essentially have to steal a meal from the kitchen- before she'd even entered the hospital, so she'd come prepared with transportation tags. Fantastic things, transportation tags. You could stick them on any inanimate object, and then when you completed the handseals for them, the object with the tag was transported directly to you. You just had to be sure you connected the tag to the object you wanted to move. The particular tag Sakura had used had the mealtray's description carefully inked onto it, so when she 'summoned' the tag, the tray came with.

She hadn't really wanted to resort to using the tag, but she didn't have much of a choice. Sure, she could have gone to ask the Chief of Medicine for his permission to take a meal, but then she'd have to explain the whole deal, in which case he might inform the council of her actions, and even if he didn't there was the possibility that he'd just deny her request.

_:Like that saying, sometimes it's easier to ask for forgiveness rather than permission,: _she thought, her lips compressed into a thin line. She sealed the tray into a scroll, and stalked irritably to the jail. Once again, the guards did not challenge her, and once again, she scowled but did nothing. The failing made her even more irritable, but she just thought: _I'll tell them off later… _and walked on.

Itachi seemed to be meditating in the chair when she reached his cell.

"Evening, Uchiha-san," she said perhaps a little curtly.

"Good evening, Haruno-san," he responded, opening his eyes. She could hear the slight question in his tone, so she pulled out the seal scroll, unsealed the mealtray, and set it on the rough floor in front of him.

"I brought you dinner," she declared. He stared down at the food with a blank face, and then turned to look at her. She looked back, thoughtfully, a little uncertainly.

_:Should I release him now from the chakra compulsion that keeps him in the chair? Or I could leave and just let it release when I reach the checkpoint, as usual. Do I need to stay here and watch him eat? No… and I don't really have anything to say to him.:_

"Right," Sakura said finally, awkwardly. "I'll just leave you to eat in peace, then. Good night."

"Thank you," he said. His voice was calm, but the way his eyes were drawn seemingly involuntarily back to the food belied his focus.

_:He hasn't eaten for days,: _Sakura reminded herself. His thanking her was rather uncomfortable, though… to have him humbling himself like that was disquieting.

"Don't thank me," she said unthinkingly. "I'm not… I've done you no favors."

_No one in this village has. _She clamped her lips shut against the words.

He managed to tear his eyes from the mealtray and looked up at her, the shadows on his face sharp and dark. The muscles of her jaw tightened, and she turned wordless and left.

* * *

Sakura had been confused before in her life- _Why did Sasuke have to leave us to get powerful? Were we not good enough? Why did so many people have to die in war? Why couldn't people solve their problems in ways other than war? Why were the ninja the ones to die, when the wars were the lords'?_- but never had she ever been so conflicted. A part of her wanted to forget what she'd read in the hidden Uchiha scrolls, but the other part continued to whisper insistently that is was far to logical to discredit. She wanted to pity Itachi, but she also wanted to hold to her villainistic view of him. She wanted to trust her village, but part of her warned her that she shouldn't.

_:Ninja are the tools of the hidden villages. We are nothing more than that,: _she told herself. It was what they were taught in the Academy, though admittedly not in those harsh words. No, they'd prettied the phrases up for the young students' ears. _'Ninja should be loyal, devoted first and foremost to the village. By becoming ninja, you are pledging yourself, all of yourself, to the use of the village and the citizens of Fire Country. You should be proud of your strength and discipline; you are the protectors of the people.'_

Generally, following those words wasn't a problem. It just became one when your leaders were… corrupt. Self-serving. Greedy. Power-hungry, power-mad. Sakura bit her tongue, brow furrowing. She couldn't afford such thoughts. The cost was too high; what if they made her falter at some vital point? What if these thoughts caused the deaths of innocent Konoha citizens?

_:I have to scrub them from my mind,: _Sakura decided. _:The only thing is… It's impossible. How can you unthink a thought?:_

Damn. Sakura closed her eyes, opened them, stared at her limp hands in her lap. Nothing was the same. Nothing could ever be the same, not anymore. Too much had happened. Sakura and her world, or perhaps just the way she viewed her world, were irreversibly changed. And really, if she was being honest with herself, the changing had started long ago. She couldn't blame Itachi for her disillusionment, as much as he made a convenient target. He'd only made her realize what was already in her head.

_:And I can't hate him for it,: _she thought, her eye twitching a bit. _:If anything, I'm… grateful. How twisted is that? Oh, hey. You destroyed my worldview. Thanks. Really.:_

Sakura barked an un-amused laugh. There was her devotion to truth and justice, screwing things up for her yet again. She really should have learned by now… But she hadn't. Maybe there was something wrong with her? She _had _heard voices- or at least _a _voice- when she was little. Hell, she _still _heard it, sometimes.

"Well, I've moved from denial to excuses… pretty soon I should hit 'acceptance' and 'coping'. Hurrah." She took a sip of cold tea from the cup sitting nearby, and grimaced. "If I'm lucky, the coping part won't include copious amount of alcohol, or sharp blades and massive blood-loss."

She paused.

"Or maybe that should be 'if I'm lucky, it _will _include them.'"

If Naruto heard her, he'd yell at her till he was blue in the face. If there was one thing he hated, it was for people to give up. No, Sakura would never suicide. Even though Naruto wasn't there, she would live in a way to honor her friend, be he dead or alive.

_:What _would _Naruto think of this whole Itachi thing?: _she wondered then. Her mind supplied the answer readily. _:He'd march right up to Itachi, or the council… or both… and demand to know the truth. And then he'd do everything he could to fix what was broken.:_

Or at least, that's what he would have done back in their Genin and Chuunin days; if he was still alive, he might be different from the cheerful, determined boy Sakura had known growing up. He might be more cautious, more thoughtful. Gods knew Sakura had changed…

But she'd rather not explore how her experiences had changed her just now. Mostly what she wanted was her mind to stop twisting up like a nest of snakes, so she could at least make an attempt at sleep. She knew she'd probably have nightmares, but she needed some rest, even if it was just a few minutes' worth.

She knocked back the last of her tea, and went to put the cup in the sink. Maybe if she got in bed and counted cracks in the ceiling, she would bore herself to sleep.

* * *

_The day was strangely dark, as if there was a layer of ash in the air that muted the sun, which shone sickly orange-brown low in the sky. She looked up at it, brow furrowed. It was almost like that day when half of Konoha had burned in that Iwa attack. Except… there was no screaming, no blood in the streets, no sounds of combat._

_But there was the sound of weeping, she realized finally, as her brain identified the sound that had been tickling her ears the whole time. It sounded like a child…_

_She began looking around in concern. Strangely, she seemed to be the only one hearing the soft sounds; everyone else kept walking down the streets, continuing on their business without so much as a twitch. _Where are you? _she wanted to call, but though her throat worked, nothing came out. And the child kept crying. The sound pricked her heart, and she doubled her efforts to locate the source._

_As if by magic, an alley appeared beside her, where no alley had been just seconds before. Without hesitation, she went down it, peering behind the trash cans and boxes that lined the narrow way._

_The crying was getting louder; she was on the right path. She went around one large trash can, and spotted a small crawlspace in the wall behind it. It seemed just the right size for a small child to creep into, so she got down on her hands and knees to peer inside. As she did, the hole seemed to grow, or she shrunk, and so she found herself able to fit easily into the crawlspace. It was dark, very dark, but there was a tiny pinprick of light on the other side, so she started crawling. And then she realized that there was no ceiling, and she stood and started walking._

Faster, faster, _something seemed to urge her, and she broke into a run. The light was a large looming circle now, and then abruptly, she burst out of the dark and into the full light. It was glaring, and painful. But the crying seemed to be coming from right at her feet._

_She looked down, squinting against the burning brilliance. A little boy crouched low to the ground, face cradled in his hands, dark hair sticking up in an unruly halo around his head. She had seen such tousled hair before, but on a different boy…_

What's wrong? _she tried to ask. She reached out for him. As if he had heard her, he looked up, and she jerked her hand back before it touched him._

_Two perfect _Mangekyo Sharingan _eyes stared back at her from a face that was no less recognizable for all its youthful softness. As she watched, large teardrops welled in the corners of his eyes and rolled down his cheeks, which did not yet bear the lines she knew life and pain would eventually etched on them. He looked so much like his younger brother that she wanted to reach out to him again, but the eyes and the tears stopped her._

_He was crying blood._

I didn't want this! _he cried in a broken little boy's voice. _Please…

_He lifted a hand, smeared with red tears._

* * *

Sakura gasped awake, and found herself pressing herself deeper into the cushion of her bed, so that she could feel the springs dig into her. Her heart was fluttering, and her hands and feet tingling, and there were tears on her face. She rubbed at her cheeks and tried to settle her breathing.

_:Great, now I'm having sympathetic nightmares starring child-Itachi,: _she thought. The bruised look on the young face of the Itachi in her dream made her chest ache. He had looked only five or six years old… and so hurt, so wretchedly _sad_. Sakura blinked rapidly, and stared at the wall fixedly. She found herself wishing that she could go back and make everything better, save the broken little boy.

_:Idiot, you don't know if he was actually ever like the innocent little waif in your dream; he could have just as easily been as cool and collected as he is now. He _was _a genius, a prodigy. You can't base things on what you've dreamed. Dreams are just crap your brain has made up.:_

She sighed and sat up, kicking her sheets off. It was zero-four-hundred. That was good; it meant she had gotten five hours of sleep. It was more than she had hoped for. Sakura washed up, got dressed, and made herself a cup of tea. Just as she was sitting down to drink it, there was a pounding on her door.

Her heart nearly stopped, and she slopped a bit of hot tea on her hand. Hissing, and putting the slightly burnt skin to her mouth, she cautiously went to the door. The council couldn't have found out about the scrolls, could they? No, the scrolls were still in Sakura's hip-pouch, and nobody had touched it. Maybe this was about stealing a hospital meal to feed Itachi…

There was an ANBU she didn't know standing outside. He nodded to her curtly when she opened the door and said: "You're needed at the hospital. Immediately."

"Understood. I'm all ready," Sakura responded, her heart sinking a bit. If there was one thing she didn't want to do today, it was to witness more pain and suffering. But she didn't hesitate to lock up her apartment and follow the ANBU over the roofs to the hospital. Her tea sat forgotten on her kitchen table.

The emergency trauma center was chaos when she got there; apparently three Konoha cells had engaged a group of elite Cloud nins and had had a bad time of it. There were three medics with an indeterminate number of nurses working on the nine survivors. Sakura scrubbed up and jumped right in, she face settling into a fierce mask of concentration. First, she took a look at a leg wound that had gone to the bone, severing the Achilles tendon as it went. It was bloody, slippery work, but at last she got the tendon stapled back in place. Once it was set, she was able to use her chakra to promote the reattachment of the tissue to the bone and muscle. When she was satisfied with the integrity of the connection, she removed the crude staple, put in a peg that could remain inside the body and not cause problems, and stitched up the wound using a combination of chakra and normal sutures. She made sure the wound wouldn't leave any lasting muscle damage but expended the minimum amount of chakra, relying on needle and thread where she could. When she was done, she washed up again.

The next patient was unconscious, clearly a victim of a poisoned kunai. As well, she had some wounds across her face, a little too close to the eyes for comfort. Sakura burned out the poison (it was a standard ninja toxin, one that Sakura could identify and treat blindfolded), and then delved into the facial wounds. Unlucky; the girl would lose her peripheral vision in the left eye, and have some slight blurring of sight in both. Eyes were tremendously delicate; Sakura hadn't yet found anyone who could fix the human eye. Not even Tsunade had been able to. She could keep eyes healthy, but rebuilding what was lost was beyond any medic, living or dead. This might be the girl's last mission as a kunoichi.

Sakura left the girl in the care of one of the nurses and stepped back, wiping a light layer of sweat off her brow. Her third patient was one of the adult leaders of the squads. He was lying quietly on his stretcher, staring blankly up. Sakura recognized him vaguely; he had been a few years ahead of her in the Academy, she thought, but couldn't think of his name. She scrubbed and dried her hands and went to him. She was a little surprised to find that he had a kunai protruding from his chest. He'd been hit in the field, and his comrades had been too afraid to remove the weapon, for fear that doing so would make his condition worse.

"Can you hear me?" Sakura asked him. He was just lying there…But-

"Yes," he whispered. He didn't shift his gaze. He had to be in a lot of pain, but he showed no sign. Then again, he might be shocky from his injury.

"I'm going to have to remove the kunai. There will be pain. Can you bear it for a moment?" Sakura told him. Her hand went to the hilt of the weapon gently.

"Yes…"

"Very well." And Sakura began to pull.

It was fortunate that his Teammates had left the kunai in; it had hit his lung, and had it been removed the lung would have collapsed, he would have bled out, and he would have died quickly. As it was, he had lost a dangerous amount of blood—likely it was only his shinobi training that was keeping him conscious just then.

He wasn't immune to the fresh pain, and panted and cried out as Sakura drew the kunai from his body. She went slowly, healing as she went. It took far too long, and the poor man was incoherent not even halfway through. Sakura had to signal two nurses to help hold him down as he twisted.

"I'm sorry! I'm sorry! Ando!" he screamed, along with many other incomprehensible things. Sakura could only assume Ando had been one of his Teammates. Perhaps one of the ones who had died.

Sakura finished at last and dropped the bloody kunai into a receptacle as her patient slumped at last into unconsciousness. She was breathing hard, but at least had ensured that he wouldn't die immediately from his wound. As long as they could keep the infection that she had detected growing in his body under control, he would live. She scrubbed her hands viciously to get the blood off them.

"_Hold _him!" came the shout from across the room, as she dried off. Her head snapped around and saw one of the other medics trying to cut old bandages from another patient, as the shinobi writhed and flailed in pain and panic. A few nurses were fluttering around him, unable to subdue the injured ninja. Sakura hurried over, and knocked one nurse out of the way.

The old bandages were dyed red and brown with fresh and dried blood, and bound tightly around the shinobi's torso. Gut-struck. Sakura's own gut clenched. Her nostrils flared at the smell she could pick up from the bandages and wound. The other medic was focused wholly on his patient; he didn't notice Sakura standing there.

"Dammit, keep him _still_!" he snapped, presumably to the nurses.

"Oh gods, oh gods, _I don't want to die_!" screamed his patient. Sakura felt her breath hitch; the injured shinobi was just a boy. A Chuunin, but a boy none-the-less. He was maybe thirteen or fourteen, and had clearly never been in so much pain before. He was fevered, and frightened, and…

"I'll hold him," Sakura said softly. The other medic looked up, and Sakura could see on his face that he already knew what she had realized, but didn't want to admit it.

They couldn't save him. The wound had pierced the bowels; the boy was doomed. Perhaps if he had been treated within the first few minutes of being wounded he might have had a chance, but since his Team had had to carry him back through the forest from the patrol area, a journey that took hours… It was an unavoidable fact: They might have bandaged him tightly enough that his intestines had remained in his body and his blood loss was minimized, but the perforated bowels had leaked death into the boy's body cavity. He was already burning, rotting from the inside out.

"It hurts, it hurts," he moaned, his body flopping and twisting on the gurney. "Please! Gods, stop the pain…"

Sakura watched as the other medic's eyes went flat and bleak, finally giving in to the truth. He nodded to her and turned to shuffle through his kit.

Sakura went to the dying boy's side, and clambered up to kneel on the gurney at his head. She slid her arms around his shoulders, shifting him gently so he rested against her chest, half in her lap. His head bumped against her collarbones as he tossed it in agony. She tightened her arms into a firm but gentle embrace.

"Shhh… it's okay… it's okay," she whispered to him, resting her cheek on his sweaty brow. He kept moaning and crying out, but his movements became less violent and flailing.

"I don't want to die, please, please, gods…. Oh gods the pain…"

Sakura could feel the rapid beating of his heart and his sharp panicked breaths. She looked up to see the other medic moving forward with a grim face. He held a syringe full of gold liquid. Sakura nodded slightly to him, and, solemn, he administered the injection to the boy's inner elbow swiftly. It was mercy. A bitter mercy, but mercy.

First, it would calm him. Then, it would put him to sleep. And finally, it would prevent him from ever waking up. Compared to the slow agonizing death a gut-struck man had to look forward to, it was a good death. Sakura continued to hold him as his screams quieted. He continued panting and whimpering, but his heartrate was beginning to come down. Sakura just held him and rocked him gently, shushing him and murmuring comforting lies.

His legs kicked feebly, slowly stilling. His hands had come up to grasp Sakura's arms tightly, as if by holding to her with all his strength he could also hold to life. But the gold liquid was already working on him, faster than the infection in his belly.

"Please," he whimpered, still delirious from fever. "please."

It was the last thing he said. Seconds later, his eyes slipped closed and all tension left him. Likely he was already gone, but his body continued vainly pumping blood and taking in air. But that, too, soon faded and stopped. Sakura held the body until it was absolutely still, with no lingering signs of life.

When she at last released her hold and arranged the corpse neatly on the gurney, she found herself slightly stiff and a little tremble-y. She had just under a third of her chakra left, and was voraciously hungry; she hadn't had the chance to eat anything before coming to the emergency ward. She pulled the boy's hitai-ate over his eyes and turned away.

The other medic who had been working on him, the one who had administered the shot, was standing behind her. His face was drawn and pale, and he looked at her with a blankness of emotion behind his eyes.

"Would you like to have something to eat, to replenish your reserves?" he asked her, wording the suggestion as a question in a nicely diplomatic way. She was his superior, after all, and one didn't just go telling one's superior what to do. "I could have someone bring you something from the kitchen."

"That'd be a good idea," she replied tiredly. "Could you have it sent to my office?"

"Of course, Haruno-san."

"Thank you." They both carefully avoided speaking about or looking at the corpse behind them.

The medic turned away, presumably to get that food on its way, and Sakura trudged up to her office on the third floor. It was a large office, the official 'Head Medic's Office', but Sakura found all that space strangely oppressive. It was like studying in the large marble atrium of a library; you felt as if the very walls were glaring at you, making you feel as if you don't belong. She'd tried to soften the room by furnishing it with a couch and a couple somewhat-scruffy chairs, but all that did was make it look like she couldn't decorate. But she did appreciate the presence of those comfortable old seats sometimes. Like now, as she eased herself onto the couch like an old woman. Maybe she'd nap a little; that would help her replenish her chakra.

Sakura sighed, and leaned back into the worn cushions, closing her eyes.

Then she opened them and stared blankly into space. That Chuunin's face and whimpers would haunt her for a few nights; sometimes her patients stayed with her like that. And then sometimes they didn't, and she wondered if she was becoming somehow less human because the deaths didn't trouble her. Sure she felt bad every time, but sometimes that regret just faded, as if it were too taxing to keep feeling it. That made her feel guilty, a little. Shouldn't she mourn them a bit more? What kind of person was she, to move on past a death so quickly?

One that had seen death too often, and had become partially desensitized to it.

Sakura shivered. That couldn't be true, could it? Was she really getting used to seeing comrades- _children_- die? She scrunched her eyes closed and burrowed into the couch so that her body was wedged between the seat and back cushions. It felt almost like an embrace. Sakura pressed herself back and let her weariness and sorrow crash over her. Soon, her mind retreated into the white haze that she referred to as her 'safety box'. There, she was numb. There, she didn't think.

She didn't even notice it when she fell asleep, at least until she was awoken by the sound of a door closing. She blinked and immediately noticed the mealtray that sat on her small coffee table. It must have been just delivered; the sound of her office door closing behind whoever had brought it had been what woke her.

Sakura looked at the food and realized that she had no appetite.

_:I'll bring it to Itachi,: _she thought. _:Then at least I don't have to steal again from the kitchen. At least right now.:_

She sighed. She should probably bring it to him now; he likely hadn't gotten anything to eat since the meal she'd brought him last night. And it was a little after noon now. Sakura dragged herself to her feet, sealed the tray into a scroll, and trudged off to the jail.

* * *

Sakura set the mealtray down before the bound Uchiha as he watched her with an air of deceptive apathy. She sat back on her heels and looked into his face. He gazed back with those cloudy dark-ash eyes.

_:How much can he really see?: _she wondered. She had an idea of how damaged his vision was from her medical evaluation, but she didn't know for sure what it was like for him, how much of the world he had lost. Somewhere in her body- a body still numbed from the experience of holding a dying child (he may have been a soldier, but he had still been a child)- there was a stir of pity and empathy. :_I lost my metaphoric view of the world, but he has lost his actual view of the world…:_

It seemed that nothing good ever came of following the path of the ninja. Your friends died, your loved ones died. You gave up your fitness, your morals, your emotions, your life for things you did not always have a say in. You bled, you broke. You killed. Where was the good? Where was the incentive for others to take up this leaden mantel?

Honor, glory. To go down in a blaze of heroism. Ha. And how often did that actually happen? What was so glorious about screaming your life out on a gurney as your comrades stood by, unable to do anything about it? Where was the honor in dying after a mere fifteen years of life? And for a village that lied to you. For a village that counted your life as a number on a ledger.

_:And somehow, even we who suffer for it promote it. We teach our students the lies we were taught. Why? Is it so painful to admit that what we live for, what we fight for, is a lie that we can't even consider doing so? Do we extend the farce in some stupid attempt to validate our lives?: _The same questions as before, and she wasn't any closer to the answers this time. Feeling lost, she wondered if there was anything she could do in her life that was purely her own, not a part of the lies and pain. How do you stop the cycle? _:How can you stop a war that's been raging on and off for centuries? How do you stop children from going off to die on battlefields? How do you stop young men from destroying their lives?:_

Almost before she realized it, she was reaching for Itachi's face. Because of his bonds, and his character, he did not flinch away, but allowed her to bracket his face in her small, tough hands. In an unconscious decision, Sakura intercalated her chakra into his eyes.

She'd read the scrolls that the Uchiha clan had researched and written about the Sharingan. She understood it nearly as well as anyone could. With that knowledge fresh in her mind, she looked at Itachi's damaged tissue and nerves and saw options there.

She withdrew. "I couldn't repair the damage that already exists. No one could. The dead nerves will always be dead. But I cleaned out the debris that clouds the retina and took measure so that your sight does not get any worse."

She watched as he blinked a few times, his face changing subtly so that there was some strange emotion present on it that Sakura could not find words for.

"What I did won't last forever; normal use and especially activation of the Sharingan will wear away the blocks I put in, and when the blocks are gone, the damage will start up again, continuing on from where it left off. Any medic at my level, or perhaps even a little lower, could reapply the blocks, though." Sakura knowingly acted as if she didn't realize what implications her words held, but she knew that Itachi would notice them. His eyes- maybe now slightly clearer and more focused- were scanning her face intently. Sakura stood and patted her medic apron down.

"Now. I brought another meal. Eat," she said, and turned and made her way to the door.

"Why?" Itachi asked. Sakura purposefully pretended to misunderstand what he was asking.

"Because you're still half-starved and I can't have you dying just yet," she replied, glancing back at him. He looked un-amused, and just stared at her until she answered properly. She turned back around. "Because being able to see the world clearly is a gift."

There. Let him decipher that as he will.


	5. 5 Lies and Dreams and Sorrow

**_Howdy. This is the edited version of this chapter._**

* * *

She slept more when she got home, her chakra slowly recharging. She knew she should eat, but just couldn't quite bring herself to put forth the effort. So Sakura merely curled tightly around her stomach to lessen the ache and let herself drift.

She went back to her safety box, her mind withdrawing back into itself, coherent thought fading. It was almost as if she was putting herself in a trance, except, of course, Sakura didn't believe in all that sort of thing- 'Listen to my voice. I will count back from one hundred. When I reach ninety your eyelids will feel very heavy…' Ha. No. Perhaps her safety box might better be compared to meditation, if you had to compare it to something. She separated her mind from the limits of her body and cleared her mind…

The dream hit her really without warning. One moment she was drifting and then next, she'd settled into a Hell.

_There were bodies piled around her feet, their blood coating her boots up to the ankle. As she looked around in horror, she caught sight of a familiar figure off in the distance. It was Naruto, Naruto as she had last seen him, with his orange-and-black jacket and pants and unruly blond hair. He was standing with his back to her, hands on his hips as if surveying the land before him._

_She called out to him, and tried to slough through the gore and destruction. He didn't seem to hear her, but she kept calling, hoping that her voice might reach him somehow. And as she shouted his name, she fought through the corpses with their dead, grasping hands. Nearly there…_

_Naruto suddenly doubled over, as if he's been punched in the gut, and started shaking._

_No, no, no! She had seen this before, when he'd…_

_She screamed him name, and he flew apart into an explosion of burning red chakra._

She jerked awake, almost certain that she could feel the heat of the Kyuubi's malevolence on her face. But she was alone, curled in her bed. Sakura grimaced and curled tighter. If only she didn't have to sleep. If only she could just turn off her brain.

She got up, and sighed. She was a little shaky. Her body needed food; she couldn't put it off any longer.

Sakura went into her kitchen and started some rice cooking. A quick inspection of her (these days) neglected pantry and refrigerator yielded half a desiccated onion, some mostly-liquefied cucumbers, a bag of dried squid, and a bottle of soy sauce. She dropped the cucumbers into the trash, her face screwed up against the disgusting feel of them, and got out a knife to see if she could salvage any of the onion.

There was a bit that she could use, so she got that sweating in a pan as she inspected the squid. Not too old. In fact, it was perfectly edible, if a bit chewy. It and the browned onions went in a bowl with soy sauce poured over them. She scooped herself up a healthy serving of rice, and went at it. She was finished very quickly.

After washing up after herself, Sakura sat at the table with a fresh cup of tea and slumped. Her home was quiet. Deathly so.

She could remember the days when there was always somebody visiting her, sitting at her kitchen table as she cooked stir-fry or (if it was Naruto) ramen, or sitting with her on her couch, talking over a pot of tea or tokkuri of sake. She had rarely been alone in those days…

Sakura thought back on her dream, and on the memories she was sure it had been born from. The dream had been very close to what had actually happened. After they'd learned of Hinata's death, Naruto had gone feral. He'd turned into the Kyuubi… or had at least gotten very close. Maybe as many as eight tails… and then disappeared into the west to, presumably, wreck vengeance upon her killers. The image of his familiar, red-whirlpool-marked back exploding into the waving chakra 'fur' of the Kyuubi spirit was forever etched into her mind. It had been, after all, the last time she'd seen him.

_:Depression has made me maudlin,: _she thought, trying not to let herself wonder if she ever would see her irrepressible blond Teammate again. Her body twitched in sudden, nervous, fidgety energy. Tossing back the last of her tea, she stood and twitched her way out of her house.

The meal- spartan as it had been- did much to rejuvenate her. She felt nearly back to top-form as she walked at a fast clip down the street, wandering mindlessly. The subdued bustle of Konoha helped calm her, somehow. Perhaps it was just the reassurance of being surrounded by life, but Sakura felt more grounded after just a few minutes of walking. It was reassuring to hear that at least some aspects of life in the Hidden Village were continuing, despite the war.

Sakura sighed, and turned her head lazily, eyes half-closed as she scanned the market street, taking in the normal sights of merchants and clients bartering and passersby gawking at particularly attract storefronts.

Her eyes snagged on a familiar form, and she blinked fully alert.

"Choji!" she called, and hustled over to her year-mate. He turned awkwardly to face her. Despite the ungainliness of some of movements, he really had adjusted well to his missing limbs.

"Hello Sakura," replied the onetime-Jounin. Sakura gave him her best smile, which was, sadly, a weak one.

"Hello Choji. How have you been? I haven't seen you in a while," she said. Aside from his missing arm and leg, Choji was also battling some demons of his own. He had been admitted a few times to the hospital because the strength of his nightmares had driven him to do himself harm. Understandable, since the Mist ninjas who had removed his limbs had forced him to watch them dismember his Teammates before they'd started on him. The Konoha reinforcements had made it in time to save his life, if not his arm and leg. Although… whether that was a blessing or a curse depended on whom you asked.

"Better sometimes, worse others," Choji replied gravely. Sakura nodded understanding. She touched his shoulder just above the stump.

"Would you sit with me for a while?" she asked on a whim. He inclined his head cordially, and she led him to a small outdoor tea-seller. They sat quietly on one of the benches.

"And how are you, Sakura?" Choji asked after a moment of subtle shifting, finding the best way to painlessly arrange himself on the seat. Sakura blinked, looked at the ground.

"I'm… I've been better." The vendor brought them two cups of steaming tea, and Sakura cradled hers in her hands.

"Choji…" she said after a moment, "do you ever wonder how we got to where we are?"

He seemed to consider the question, sipping carefully at the hot tea. Finally he shook his head. "It's too complicated for me to consider trying to figure it out. There's too much that happened, too many choices made. It's too much to think about."

Sakura swirled her cup. "Sometimes I wish I could stop thinking about it, but… I can't seem to help it."

"That was always your problem, Sakura," Choji said, somewhat unexpectedly. "You thought too much. Your brains were to your advantage in the Academy, but sometimes you don't need to think so much. All you need to do is what seems right to you at the time."

She smiled sadly into her tea, and then lifted her face and looked at the broken, emaciated form of her old friend. "Thank you, Choji," she said softly. "You're a lot more insightful than you let on."

A ghost of the old Choji drifted across his face. "Shikamaru was always the thinker. Little call for me to do so."

Sakura swallowed the sting that the mention of that name brought, but smiled gamely back. "We were all rather eclipsed by him, weren't we?"

"One of the first of us to become a Jounin…"

"A genius," Sakura said, thinking of parallels and tragedies.

* * *

Sakura left Choji after a while, and procured another meal for her prisoner. It was probably best not to ask her just how she… 'procured' it.

_:This wouldn't be necessary if the stupid Council just realized how much smarter it is to keep prisoners in interrogations _alive_. Idiots.: _she thought sourly as she entered the jail.

This time, the Chuunin guards stopped her, and as she blinked at them, one said: "Sorry, Haruno-san. The Council said to send you to them when you came by tonight."

"Ah," Sakura replied. "Right."

She paused. "Then I have a task for one of you. Take this-" she produced the meal "-and give it to my prisoner. You know the one I mean."

"But the Council said not to feed-" protested one of the Chuunin. Sakura switched on her 'older-wiser-JOUNIN-glare-of-displeasure.' The boy quailed.

"The Council doesn't have to try to erk intel out of a weakened prisoner. They don't know how difficult it makes my job. You will deliver this meal to him. I _will _know if you disobey."

"Yes, Haruno-san. Understood!" he said, snapping to attention. Sakura nodded.

"Alright then. Carry on," she said, and turned toward the Council chamber.

_:From worse to worst,: _she thought. The walk felt like the last march of a doomed criminal. And likely, she would be treated just as one by the loving Council.

Sakura paused outside the chamber door to collect herself. The guards on either side of the entrance pretended not to notice her weary sigh. She squared her shoulders and went in.

"Well, what is your update?" came at her almost before she'd reached her place before the seated elders. Sakura looked at them, allowing her affront to show a bit on her face. She remained silent until she was standing in place, and then she turned to them and responded, as if no time had elapsed.

"The Akatsuki only had one hideout in Grass, and we destroyed it last year," she said. "This provides a valuable-"

"The Council does not need you to inform it of the value of this statement," said a bored voice in the back. A tall, thin man stood slowly. "We are capable of inferring meaning without your help, Jounin Haruno."

"I… I'm sorry if I seemed patronizing," she said, blinking a little. They were certainly… touchy… tonight.

_:Must be past their bedtimes,: _said the caustic, contemptuous side of her. She bit back a sudden snicker.

"Never mind," said one of the other elders, a woman. "We have been considering how long it is advisable to keep such a threat alive. How much more information do you think he will divulge, and how long will it take to extract it?"

"I think he know a lot more than he is telling, but that getting at it will be difficult. It will take time," Sakura said honestly. The Councilors nodded to each other as if this was what they expected.

"We are giving you a week to extract what you can, and then we are ordering the threat disposed of."

Disposed of? What? They were going to kill him in a week?

"Forgive me, but why?" Sakura blurted, only just remembering to soften the question. "He is essentially defanged, bound as he is. He hasn't been able to raise enough chakra to even make a sneeze dangerous."

"He is the most notorious criminal this village has ever seen. We will not risk it more than we must."

It was at this point that Sakura wondered why they were suddenly so nervous. She subsided, the gears behind her eyes clicking furiously. "I understand. Very well. I will complete my interrogations within the week."

"Good. You are dismissed."

Sakura bowed and left.

_:What are they afraid of? Itachi escaping? Akatsuki coming to get him? What?: _Sakura's brows drew together in thought. :_Are they… Could they be afraid that he will tell me the truth of why he left? The massacre?:_

She was thinking as if she already believed her suppositions to be true. Those damn Uchiha scrolls had made her paranoid. They'd undermined her trust and loyalty. Not that those hadn't already been on the out…

_:No. I really can't keep thinking like this!: _she shook her head. _:I should just ask and have done with it. No more questioning, wondering, paranoia…:_

But Sakura wasn't sure if she wanted to- or should- go see Itachi after the meeting. She wondered if the Council would be watching her, if they suspected her already as she suspected them. Tellingly, she felt that she would rather get the truth from Itachi than the Councilmembers. She felt that she could trust him, somehow.

_:Oh but I am a fool,: _she thought as she went down to the prison.

* * *

The Chunin guards snapped to rigid attention when they saw her coming, perhaps expecting her to chew them out or something, but she ignored them and continued on down.

When she got to Itachi's cell, her eyes immediately picked out the empty food tray sitting against one of the walls, neatly stacked on the previous one. She opened the cell and entered. "Oh good, they did deliver the meal."

She went over and toed the trays, and then turned to face Itachi. She surveyed him, noting how there was a sharpness, a focus, in his eyes that had been lacking before. Her healing had given him back some of his sight, though not all of it. Since she'd cleaned out the debris at the retina and took down the chronic inflammation, he was able to focus more and see full, bright color. His vision would still be very blurred, but at least it was not dimmed anymore.

Sakura knelt before him and reached up to put her hands gently at his temples, trying not to notice how he kept his gaze trained on her. Sweeping her chakra around his eyes and the nerves attached, she fought back a grin of triumph. She had done a good job with the healing, there were only a few secondary treatments she had to do, but no harmful or annoying complications.

Itachi's voice rolled smoothly out into the quiet space: "You are foolish."

Sakura ducked her head a little to hid the little wry smirk that flashed across her mouth. "Yes, I know."

"Then why do you keep doing this?"

She paused thoughtfully. Time stretched. And then, finally, she came to a decision.

Sakura met Itachi's gaze fully, tipping her head back so her face was fully visible, and asked: "Did the council order you to kill your clan?"

There was an eternity of silence.

"Ah," Itachi sighed. "You found the scrolls."

"Are they true?" Sakura asked. "Was the Uchiha clan planning a coup d'etat?"

Itachi tipped his head to the side and gazed at her for a moment before responding. "Yes."

"And did the council then order you, as an ANBU agent, to eliminate the threat the clan posed?"

Another, longer, silence.

"And what will you do, Haruno Sakura, with my answer, should I give it?" he asked, and Sakura decided that Uchiha Itachi was the most dangerous shinobi she had ever known. Even standing there, draped in chains and half-blind, he was the one in control and dangerous.

She answered truthfully: "I don't know."

She paused. "Do you hate me for finding out?"

That almost-there smile. "Shinobi don't hate, Haruno-san. Shinobi do not feel emotions."

"That might be true," Sakura snorted, "were ninja not human. But we are. Do you hate me?"

The shadow smile vanished, his face solemn once more. "No."

Simple. Monosyllabic. Straight-forward. And… honest. Sakura nodded absently.

"So this is the truth…" she mused. "You destroyed your own life on orders from your village. You gave up everything… to save Konoha. You willingly became a villain for a village that, after everything, reviled you as a criminal, a murderer."

She looked at him, her mind seizing suddenly onto a string of revelations. "You wanted Sasuke to kill you. You thought that would be justice, you… You thought it would save him! That's what you meant earlier, about finding a new way to die. You… I…"

"Correct," murmured Itachi. Sakura's brows knit.

"So you do still want to die?" she asked. "Is that what you're searching for? A good way to die?"

She sounded almost mad at him. And she was. Almost mad, that is. She couldn't believe how ridiculous he was being. Or perhaps it wasn't him. His actions weren't so wrong; he was only following what his sense of honor, of justice, of loyalty, demanded. Perhaps she was really just angry at the Council.

_:Yes, that is it,: _she thought when a spurt of hot fury pulsed through her at the mention of the corrupt ruling body. _:I am angry at the Council. The damned, Hell-spawned Council.:_

Presently, Itachi was scanning her face.

"Perhaps," he replied calmly. Sakura's eyes flashed furiously. He was just going to let himself die? He was going to actively go out looking for some honorable death? Was that why he had gotten captured by the village? Nevermind that the village had simply found his battered body in the forest outside of the gates; you couldn't discount the possibility that he'd meant to be found. If they'd tried to capture him while he was still running at full power, he would have had to fight them. That was the part he played: the unrepentant S-class missing-nin. He would have fought, and he would have won. So maybe he engineered a situation in which he'd be incapable of fighting back, and so able to give in to the desire for justice and death.

Sakura stood abruptly, angrily.

"Fine," she said stiffly. "Fine."

She stalked to the door and out.

* * *

_:He calls _me _a fool? That idiot! He's throwing away his life and he dares call _me_ a fool? He thinks the only way to atone for the killing of his clan is to die himself… he doesn't even realize how much good he could do instead, using his power, his skill. He killed them out of a desire for peace, to keep the peace of Konoha. He saved so many lives doing it, but he can only see the lives he _took_.: _Sakura thought agitatedly. _:Death isn't the only answer!:_

She growled and punched her kitchen chair. It exploded in a shower of splinters. Sakura kicked at them before raging off to her sitting room. But everything in there was too precious, filled with memories and meaning, so she stamped back to the kitchen, seized a cup off the counter, and hurled it against the opposite wall.

"Idiot, idiot, IDIOT!" she muttered, sitting down at her last remaining chair with a huff. "He's going to die and he doesn't even _care_."

She dropped her head down onto the table.

* * *

Sakura jerked awake to find herself still at her kitchen table, having fallen asleep there after a lengthy session of pondering the night before. Her neck was stiff and her arm numb where she'd laid her head on it. She blinked confusedly around the room, wondering what had woken her. She knew something had, but couldn't quite put her finger on what… She just had this uneasy feeling. And as a ninja, she knew to pay attention to her feelings, vague as they might be.

She straightened in her chair, scanning, wary. _:What… is…:_

"Itachi!" she gasped then, and leapt from the table. She was still in her clothes from the previous day, so she simply flashed right out the door, heading at high speed toward the prison.

_:They lied, they lied to me, they lied,: _her mind kept repeating. A part of her somewhat expected this, but to actually have it happen, to feel the betrayal, was a shock. Fear and hurt and anger whirled in her, hidden behind the mask of a top-rank kunoichi. _:Damn them, they lied about the week. I can feel him fading.:_

She didn't have time to think about how attuned to his chakra, his lifeforce, she had to be. The aura he had beneath his bindings was weak; she had to be very sensitive to him to pick it up this far from him. But she didn't wonder at this. She was too concentrated on the flickering life.

When she got within eyesight of the guards she slowed down and approached them in a nonchalant manner. A little tensely, Sakura wondered if they would let her through, and couldn't help the slight shiver that ran up her spine as she walked between them. But then she was past, and they weren't moving to stop her. She waited until she'd gotten a little further away and then flashed forward at speed.

Itachi was slumped on his chair, head hanging down and slightly to the side, when she reach the cell. He didn't seem to be breathing. Sakura hissed and had the door unlocked so quickly it seemed almost to explode open.

He was breathing, but barely. And his skin was cool to the touch. Sakura cursed lowly, and flew through the handseals that would unarm the jutsu that kept him locked to the chains and the chair. He fell forward off the seat when they released, and Sakura caught him.

"Poison," she murmured, as her hands flew over him swiftly, finding the puncture wound on the side of his neck. Cowards! They'd injected it while he was immobilized by the chains and wards… She called chakra to her hands and pushed it through his body.

Fortunately the poison they'd used was a Leaf-produced poison that Sakura knew how to heal. It was a difficult one, to be sure, but she would be able to clear it up. If she really had to, she could cure him within ten minutes, though it would take a lot more out of her than otherwise. She thought it would be wiser to go the faster route, though.

"Sorry, Itachi," she said. "It may be selfish of me, but I can't let you die."

She closed her eyes and brought all her strength and skill to bear in healing him.

Sakura didn't know exactly how long it took, but the next thing she was aware of was a hand wrapped firmly around her throat.

"You fool," hissed Itachi near her face. "Do you know what you've done? Now they will kill you, as well!"

"I couldn't let you die," she choked out, not fighting him. "I didn't want you to die."

He dropped her. "Idiot kunoichi. We all die."

"You don't deserve to die for their lies, because of their lies," she said, rubbing her throat lightly. She coughed and then told him: "You should leave, they'll know I released the wards and come eventually. They might think you're dead, but they'll notice your chakra, as low as it is, soon."

"Leave?" he repeated bitterly. He was showing much more emotion that was usual… "Leave? How do you propose I do that? I am weakened, I do not think I could move as fast as I would need to, to evade the ANBU and Hunters they would send after me. And I would certainly not have enough strength or chakra to fight them."

How to leave? Sakura was silent, something in her twisting. There was one way she could think of to get him out, but it would mean… Sakura swallowed.

But then, why not? What did she have to hold her here? He was right; if she stayed, she would be implicated in his escape and killed as a traitor. And it would be in vain, since he was also right in that he hadn't the strength or chakra to make it out of the village. At least without help. _:A step across the line…:_

Sakura moved closer to him and reached a hand out, slowly so as not to cause him to attack. He didn't move away, so she laid her hand on his chest and pushed some of her leftover chakra (there wasn't that much, she couldn't heal much more than a bugbite as she was) into him, energizing him. Strengthening his limbs didn't take that much out of her; she'd gotten the technique down-pat after doing it so many times for herself.

"I could help you," she said solemnly, making her choice. "But I have to remain in contact with you to strengthen you."

There was a longish pause. And then Itachi, gripping the whole meaning of the plan as could only be expected for something with his intelligence, said: "You would help me, abandoning Konoha in the process?"

"I'm not abandoning Konoha," she corrected him, a slight scowl on her face. "I'm helping its most loyal, selfless, honorable shinobi."

"You are…" Itachi said quietly enough she had to try to hear him, "the most foolish kunoichi I have known."

Then he swept her up on his back, with her arms around his neck- hands pressed to his chest, chakra flow uninterrupted- and her legs around his waist.

"This is your choice," he said, and then ran. Sakura wrapped herself around him as closely as possible, keeping herself out of the way of his arms and legs and streamlining herself as best she could.

_:No turning back, no second thoughts. Give this everything you have or you'll have nothing!: _She kept channeling her chakra into him, allowing him to utilize his ungodly speed to move them out of the prison, and across the rooftops of the village. Very soon, Itachi's voice came to her over the rushing of the wind: "They are coming after us now."

She squeezed his shoulders in acknowledgement, shutting her eyes as dizziness made them cross. She hoped her chakra reserves would hold out until they'd gotten away. Itachi began dodging shuriken and kunai as they traveled, expending more energy (though he did what he could to minimize it). Sakura felt both of them tiring.

The sound of leaves in wind and the smell of the forest touched her senses; they were out of the village. That wouldn't mean they were free and away, but it did mean they had more chance to evade their pursuers.

Sakura hazed in and out of awareness, though she never faltered in her diverting chakra into Itachi. She knew he was doing everything he could to lose the ninjas who were following them, but she also knew that they both weren't at their best. They were in danger.

A blinding, tearing, burning pain jolted Sakura out of her drifting state, causing her breath to catch in her throat. She'd been hit. High on her back, on the right side. A kunai; she could feel it shift in her as Itachi leapt away from the ANBU responsible. Sakura gritted her teeth, said nothing, and kept up the chakra supply.

"Keep going," she told Itachi, though she probably didn't have to. She couldn't even reach back and pull the weapon from her flesh, though it scraped against her ribs at each bounding leap. Dimly, she felt Itachi's hand curve around, gently questing up her side blindly before finding the wetness of her blood and tracing it back to the wound. His fingers closed around the kunai and swiftly withdrew it, flinging it out into the foliage. Sakura bit back a gasp of pain, graying out. On top of her low chakra levels, the wound was almost too much. And it seemed to be a substantial wound; there was a decent patch of wetness spreading across her back…

Sakura clung to consciousness by her fingernails, only just aware enough to keep giving supporting chakra to Itachi. She stopped hearing or seeing or feeling, or really knowing anything at all outside of the thought: "Don't let go, don't give up. If you don't give him chakra, you both die." She even lost all sense of time.

* * *

There were voices… two of them. Sakura swam in a warm blackness, listening muzzily. She couldn't tell what they were saying. But one of the voices thrummed under her cheek, deep and calm.

_Don't let go, don't let go._

There was a shifting, as if the world were moving around her. Or maybe she was being moved in the world… Hands touched her, gently. No! They were trying to pull her away! She wouldn't let go!

"No!" cried a voice she recognized as her own after a moment. She tightened her hold. "Don't let go!"

The hands withdrew, and then the low, calm voice was speaking close to her ear: "It is alright, Sakura. You can let go now, you can let go."

She could trust that voice. Sakura sighed and relaxed. She seemed to tumble away.

* * *

When Sakura next woke, she was in much better shape. Coherent, if just a bit weak still, she opened her eyes to an unfamiliar ceiling. Glancing wearily around her, she took in the humble, cozy room in which she lay. She sat up slightly, wincing at the slight prickle of pain from the right side of her back. She reached back to touch the bandages there, and remembered. She looked around again, wondering where she was, and where Itachi was.

As if the thought had summoned him, the door opened and the Uchiha walked in. His eyes registered a tiny spark of relief at the sight of her. "You are awake."

"You're alive," she said, her own relief obvious. "I was afraid I had…"

She trailed off. Itachi stepped closer. "You nearly drained yourself of all your chakra, but you made it possible for us to reach safety."

"Oh," she said, blushing a little. "Good."

She paused. "Where are we?"

"There was a small cabin in the forest, very much out of the way and hidden. We are guests of its tenant."

"Who is he? Where is he? I want to thank him…"

Itachi didn't answer right away. When he did, he said simply: "He might want to speak for himself."

"I…" Sakura said, confused, but Itachi was peeling back her blankets. He helped her stand, and, supporting her the whole way, led her out of the tiny house to the back. There was a figure there, standing staring off into the surrounding forest. Sakura caught a glimpse of him and gasped, freezing midstep.

"_Naruto_?"

He turned, and Sakura felt her heart both heal and break at the sight of his face. It was so familiar, but set in a weary, sorrowful expression that was completely at odds with her 'brother's characteristic cheerfulness. The war and the fighting had changed Naruto, too, it seemed.

The blond came toward them, and Itachi slipped away from her, letting Naruto wrap his arm around her in support instead. The two men nodded to each other in careful politeness, and then Itachi left them to their privacy.

"You two are… more civil than I would have expected," Sakura said, after watching Itachi disappear off into the forest. Naruto helped her to sit on a nearby log, which had been propped to a proper height for a bench.

"I was suspicious of him, at first," admitted Naruto, settling down next to her. "I thought it was another ploy. Showing up here without warning, with you in his arms, injured and asking for help. I couldn't think of any reason why you would actually be with him."

"I was… we…" Sakura said, wondering how she could possibly explain it.

"He already told me the story," Naruto stopped her.

"Oh. He did?"

"Yes." Naruto was silent a moment. "I never liked the Council, but I hadn't thought…"

"I know," Sakura said when he trailed off. "I didn't think they could be so corrupt either."

They looked at each other for a few breaths, and Sakura's lip trembled. "I'm so glad to see you. When you didn't come back… I was scared that you…"

"I'm sorry," Naruto said, looking it. "I didn't mean to make you sad. I just couldn't go back."

He brushed his hair back from his face, and Sakura realized that something was missing from his appearance. She reached up and tapped his forehead. "Your hitai-ate…"

Naruto turned his face away, unable to meet her questioning gaze. "I gave that up. I'm not a shinobi anymore. I refuse to be a part of this war, of any war. I don't want to see more killing, to be a killer."

Sakura was silent for a while before whispering: "I understand how you feel. But… but that's not just what ninja are for. We also protect."

"Protect," Naruto repeated, so bitterly that Sakura was amazed this was the same boy she'd grown up with. "What do we protect with the people we kill?"

"Konoha," Sakura said. She saw Naruto begin to respond and forestalled him with a hand. "Not the Council. The citizens of Konoha. The innocent ones who have no other means of protection."

"You don't understand," Naruto said. "They only need protection _because _of the ninja, because of the existence of the Hidden Village of the Leaf. Without the temptation of the ninja and their secrets and power, nobody would attack Konoha. It wouldn't be a target if the ninja weren't there."

"Unfortunately, you underestimate the ability of humans to cause conflict. If the ninja weren't there, there would be some other reason found. Land. Wealth. Resources." Sakura looked sadly at her old friend. "It isn't that Konoha needs to get rid of the ninja, it's that we need to get rid of the ones who serve war."

The idea hit Sakura suddenly, but not without warning. She remembered Naruto's youthful ambition, the drive he had had before war had wounded his soul so grievously.

"Naruto," she said intently, leaning toward him a little. "Lets go back. Lets you and I go back, and lets rebuild Konoha into a peaceful place, a place of justice and hope. If you were Hokage-"

"And what about the Council?" interrupted Naruto. "What? Do we kill them? Murder them? How? An assassination in the night? Or will it be an open affair? No, Sakura. I've made my choice. I'm here, and here I'll stay."

"Naruto…" she whispered. "What about-"

"No."

She paused. And then sadly: "You really have given up Konoha, haven't you? You've turned away from our home…"

Naruto's face hardened. "It turned away from me."

Sakura bit her lip, trying to find something to say. She couldn't figure out how to make him see that this path was a good one, one of healing for them all. If they deposed- somehow- the Council, appointed a new, fair one, made Naruto Hokage (he really would make a good, just Hokage, she thought), and mixed their twisted policies… Then Konoha would be so much better. Safer. They could look at their village and be proud, be at peace with themselves.

Just as she opened her mouth so try to explain it to him, Itachi re-appeared. He walked up to them without hesitation. Naruto stood.

"Sakura will need to rest now," Itachi said without inflection.

"We're finished talking," Naruto replied. He walked away, causing Sakura to clench her jaw against the spike of heartache that jolted her. Itachi turned to her, and offered a hand. Sakura looked at it, looked at him.

"You're still not completely recovered," he said. "One more day and I believe you will be back to functional capacity."

Functional capacity. Only an Uchiha could say that without making it sound ridiculous. Still, it was weird to have Itachi offering her a hand up. She hesitated only a brief moment before taking it. She tried not to react as he braced her with an arm around her waist. He lead her back toward the cabin.

"If you wish it…" he said very softly after a moment, "I would clear the way for a new Konoha government."

Sakura looked up at his face in shock. "Are you volunteering to kill the Council?"

Her tone was incredulous. Itachi kept his face forward, offering her only a view of his profile. "Yes."

"I… but… Why?" They reached the cabin and went in.

"I suppose I still feel a modicum of loyalty to Konoha, even after all of this. I cannot let it rot under this Council." He hesitated. "Your plan, your view… is a pretty one. A deserving one. And I am already damned in the eyes of the village. I could kill the Council, and a new leader could step in cleanly, after saving the village from the treat I pose."

Sakura's temper flared up and she shoved him away. The action was less effective considering she couldn't hold herself up afterwards and sat heavily on the edge of her bed, glaring up at him.

"Saving the village from you? What, are you still trying to find a way to get yourself killed?" she demanded. "You idiot! Death isn't the only way to atone! Go… go… I don't know. Go help some old ladies across a street or something. You killed your clan, yes. That is a dark deed, yes. But I can see how it's nearly killed you. You already suffer so much because of what you did, because you only see the bad of it. You don't see how it saved lives, lives that would have been lost in the coup. You don't see how peace held in Konoha for several years after, instead of crumbling into civil war. You made a hard decision when you took that mission. And its nature ensured that the village that should have regarded you as a hero instead reviled you as a murdering traitor. The village you love, that you gave everything for, hates you. I believe that is pain enough. You don't need to die at their hands as well."

Sakura stopped, breathing a little heavily from the rant. She kept glaring at Itachi, and he looked back, his onyx-dark eyes unreadable. Then he reached forward and touched her cheek. It was a very gentle and brief stroke along her jaw, and then he was gone out the door. Sakura gaped after him.

* * *

_Note-- **READ ME!**-- There's a hole in Sakura's plan. I know. She's already been declared a traitor in Konoha. This will be addressed next chapter, along with some expansion on Naruto's presence and sudden appearance, and Itachi's thoughts and situation._


	6. 6 Setting Fires

_Author-- Not much to say. It's 3am right now. Hmg.  


* * *

_

Itachi walked out of the small cabin and followed the beacon of the Kyuubi's chakra. He came upon the jinchuuriki in a tiny clearing a short ways from the cabin. The blond's back was to Itachi.

"What do you want, Uchiha?" he asked wearily. Itachi stopped some distance from him.

"You are defensive. That implies you already suspect what I am going to say," the older shinobi replied evasively. Naruto turned to him, scowling.

"You heard what I said to Sakura. I'm not a ninja anymore."

Itachi blinked laconically. "And yet you have situated yourself in the Fire Country, a ninja country, and coincidentally kept close enough to your old village to keep watch over it."

Naruto's scowled deepened. "That doesn't mean anything."

Itachi lifted an eyebrow. Defensively, Naruto said: "I might be close enough to hear what happens in Konoha, but I am also too far for them to take notice of me. I'm away from all the major trade routes to the village, and out of the range of the usual patrols. I don't come into contact with anyone from the village, citizen or ninja."

"You don't deny that you pay attention to the news that comes out of Konoha."

Naruto glared, then threw up his hands and turned away. "Fine! No, I don't deny it. I listened to what happened to the village, but that was only because I still had friends there. And even though I have given up life as a ninja, that doesn't mean I've given up caring about my friends."

"You also care about the village, as much as you try not to," Itachi said. "You care about the citizens, and what Sakura was telling you was building your guilt. It was written so obviously across your face."

"You bastard," Naruto said after a moment. His shoulders were shaking slightly in anger. "Why won't you just leave me alone? That village has already cost me a lot. I'm not ready to give it more."

"You're forgetting what it is to be a shinobi. You forget the duty, the unwritten oath of the Leaf-nin," Itachi took a step closer. "We give everything to our village, keep nothing for ourselves. Every part of our lives is given for the good of Konoha."

"Who the hell are _you _to lecture me about being loyal?" Naruto snarled. "You deserted Konoha and joined the Akatsuki! They attacked and killed lots of Leaf-nin, and almost destroyed the village! You can't tell me about doing stuff _for the good of Konoha_."

"The Akatsuki did fight against Konoha. I won't lie and say they did not. But they did not deliberately target citizens. The purpose of the Akatsuki was to eliminate ninja, and therefore bring peace to the countries," Itachi said. "And I already explained to you my situation with Konoha."

"Yeah, right, that whole 'the Council told me to' story," Naruto said, grief, pain, and confusion making him cruel. Crimson swirled in Itachi's eyes and in a flash, the Uchiha had Naruto pinned by the throat against a tree. Naruto struggled, reflexes that had been trained into him responding. Itachi parried everything and kept the blond pinned.

"I told you the truth of the massacre out of necessity, because you would not have helped Haruno-san had I not. It was not out of any sort of feeling of camaraderie or because of a desire for forgiveness from you. Remember that." Itachi stared, Sharingan activated, into Naruto's furious blue eyes. And then he dropped the younger man. Naruto seemed just barely able to restrain himself from attacking the Uchiha. Itachi looked down at him coolly. "Becoming a member of the Akatsuki was one of the devices I used to build myself into Sasuke's enemy, to drive him to want to kill me."

Itachi paused and then added: "I will admit that I wanted to believe in their purpose, but truthfully, I knew it to be foolish. Eliminating ninja would not rid the world of war. But it was no matter. I had planned to be dead by Sasuke's hand before the Akatsuki plot extended to the Konoha attacks. I did not plan to be alive to participate in them."

"But you _were_ alive, you are alive. So did you participate?" demanded Naruto through a slightly strained throat. Itachi glanced at him.

"No. I persuaded the Leader to send me on other missions at those times."

"You expect me to believe that?"

"Was I mentioned in the news of the attacks? Had I been there, my name would have been mentioned, given my connection to Konoha. "

"No," Naruto admitted. "They didn't mention you."

"I did not betray Konoha," Itachi said. "Even through all this, I am true to my oaths."

He watched as Naruto's jaw tightened at the implied barb in the words. The blond kept his head bowed, so Itachi couldn't see his eyes, but it was easy to imagine the anger in them.

"But you still helped the Akatsuki. You helped them and that let them attack Konoha!"

"Did I help them?" asked Itachi calmly. "Tell me, which Jinchuuriki was I assigned to capture?"

When he fell silent expectantly, Naruto realized he wanted an answer and said bitterly: "Me. You were supposed to capture me."

"And was that ever successful?"

"No." This grudgingly.

"The small actions I did when a part of the Akatsuki were insignificant, over all, to the effort against Konoha. I fought against ninja from other countries, but did as much as I could to avoid Leaf-nins." Itachi stopped and waited for Naruto to think this over. The blond was shaking slightly with emotion, his head bowed.

"I don't. Want. To kill anymore!" Naruto bit out after a moment. "I _can't _go back and be a ninja again!"

"You can. It is simply that you do not want to. You are afraid to," Itachi corrected. And as Naruto opened his mouth to answer angrily, he said: "You have the strength and the heart to lead as Hokage. Your desire to avoid killing speaks for your fitness for the position. You won't throw away the lives of your ninja. You won't put the village at unnecessary risk. You could lead, and lead well. Haruno-san sees it as well."

Naruto was silent a moment, and then he responded quietly: "Those things you listed as my strengths are also my weaknesses. I wouldn't be able to send out any of my ninja on missions that could get them killed! I couldn't put them, or the village, at _any _risk! I'd be a weak leader, and everything would collapse."

"No, you would send them. Because you have the sense to know that you must do what must be done," Itachi said pointedly. Naruto's shoulders, defensively hunched up to now, sagged. He turned away from Itachi. The Uchiha, having said what he had needed to, and knowing that the conversation was over, started walking away. He stopped at the jinchuuriki's voice.

"Uchiha-san. Can I ask you one more thing?"

Itachi glanced back over his shoulder, waiting. Naruto took the silence as a cue. "Your finding me here wasn't a coincidence, was it?"

"No. I sensed your chakra and I knew you had once been Haruno-san's Teammate. I assumed you would be willing to help her."

"You sensed my chakra?" repeated Naruto in surprise. "But I was masking it…"

Itachi gave the blond a look that questioned his mental capacity. "You were the jinchuuriki whom I was assigned to capture. I have sensitized myself to be able to sense your chakra even masked."

"Of course," Naruto gave a self-depricating smirk. "For a second, I forgot who I was dealing with."

Itachi lifted an eyebrow. "Indeed."

He turned backa round and continued walking away. This time, Naruto didn't stop him.

* * *

Sakura was having trouble keeping her hand from going to her cheek where Itachi had touched her. She couldn't really figure out what that had been about. A thank-you? But Uchiha Itachi didn't _touch _people, no more than his anti-social younger brother had. And especially not so…so…

_:Tenderly?: _put in her mind. But that didn't sound right. Not in reference to Itachi. Maybe gently, delicately. Sakura shivered, and deliberately removed her hand from her cheek. _:No way, Haruno. No.:_

She jumped when the door opened again, her head jerking up to stare wide-eyed and pink-cheeked at Itachi, who stepped in coolly. He seemed either to not notice her flushed face or he tactfully ignored it.

"You need to sleep," he said without preamble. And while Sakura gaped, his eyes bled red and before Sakura could defend herself, he cast a genjutsu on her.

* * *

Sakura woke up furious, ready to rip out throats. She sat up in bed and looked around.

"Where is that arrogant bastard?" she snarled. Her body was humming, once again, with strength and chakra, and- she noted distantly- her wound was gone without even a scar, as her chakra had automatically healed her as it reached normal levels. She was on her feet in a flash, and at the door a split second later. She exploded outside, and to her intense satisfaction, Itachi was standing nearby, seemingly conversing quietly with Naruto. She dismissed this out-of-hand, and shouted: "ITACHI!"

She flew at him, fist cocked. Perhaps unsurprisingly, he dodged the punch agilely.

"You have awakened. Good," he said. "How are you feeling?"

Sakura's mouth worked, fury stealing her voice momentarily. "You son of a bitch! What makes you think you can-"

"You needed to regain your strength as quickly as possible. You must move immediately on Konoha's council if you wish to succeed and place Uzumaki in power."

Sakura's mouth snapped shut. "Eh?"

Naruto, who had been content to watch up to then, said (none too enthusiastically): "He's right. I need you to back me up, Sakura-chan. We're getting back our Konoha."

And apparently that was all he had the control for, because he turned abruptly and walked away, disappearing into the trees. Sakura watched him with confusion. Then she turned to Itachi.

"What's going on?" Realization hit, her eyes widened, and then narrowed. She took a step closer to the Uchiha. "Alright, what did you say to him?"

He blinked lazily before answering. "He merely recalled his oath to Konoha."

Sakura eyed him. "I don't trust you."

"You wound me," was his dry reply. Sakura resisted the urge to throttle the irritating man and crossed her arms.

"Talk, Uchiha, or so help me…" she let the threat hang, but apparently the dangerous tone that had worked so well on her boys back in the old days had lost its potency in the intervening years. Itachi smirked.

"You couldn't inflict pain on me when you thought I was an enemy. This casts serious doubts on your ability to follow through with any threats you might make."

"Insufferable…" Sakura muttered, steamed. "Just tell me what magic you did to make Naruto change his mind."

Suddenly, she stepped closer and held a fist up under his nose. "You didn't genjutsuhim, did you?"

"So little faith. No, I did not." Itachi lifted an eyebrow at the small fist in front of his face, and Sakura withdrew it. "They were mere words, as truthful as they were, that turned him. Words that he hadn't had the courage to consider himself, though he was aware of them."

Sakura mulled over that one, before deciding that retribution wouldn't be required after all. She eyes slid over to look in the direction the jinchuuriki had stalked and her face softened. "It was painful, wasn't it? What you told him."

"Perhaps," Itachi murmured. "But it made him realize he needed to heal something inside."

Sakura stared at him for a while, until he bent that Look upon her, the one that asked "yes?" without him having to move his lips. She cocked her head to the side.

"I'm trying to decide whether I should be surprised by that comment," she admitted. And the Look changed to that amused/bored one she had grown rapidly familiar with. Sakura's lips quirked and she said: "Excuse me. I guess I have kunai to sharpen."

She turned around walked back to the hut.

* * *

"And that's the plan," Naruto concluded, a little bit of life returning to his eyes and gestures as he slipped back into his training and shinobi habits. He and Sakura were leaning over a crude map of Konoha as Itachi lounged against a wall off to the side, listening but not participating. Oddly, or maybe not so oddly, Sakura felt almost as if Team Seven was back. She could almost imagine Itachi as Sasuke. Or Sasuke as he should have been.

She felt a twinge of remorse for her fallen once-Teammate. He had died as a traitor, true, but… She'd grown up with him. It had still hurt.

Sakura shook it out of her head, and refocused her attention, running over what Naruto had said once more in her thoughts. Her eyes remained thoughtfully on the map in front of them.

"I got it," she said. "If we can move fast enough, it should work. It won't be easy, but really, I wasn't expecting it to be. Though some of the ninja will back us; nobody particularly likes the Council, and if they see you leading us…"

Naruto's face twisted a little, but he didn't protest. He had earned a measure of respect from the ninja and the civilians of Konoha before he'd disappeared. Some of those people still lived, and it was safe to say if they had trained genin, then those genin had the same values as their sensei. Naruto would have a small force behind him. Even some ANBU.

Sakura's gaze slid over toward Itachi for the nth time. He was leaning against the wall with his arms crossed, eyes closed. He seemed not to notice her look. She wondered what he thought of the plan, or what part he wished to play in it. She wondered if he knew that he wouldn't be able to. She didn't really know how to broach the subject with him.

Naruto, however, had no such reservations. He said, in typical brazen Naruto fashion: "You know you can't be a part of this, right?"

Itachi didn't even open his eyes, but after a pause replied: "I understand the ramifications of my being seen to support you."

"Good," Naruto said. A little unkindly, Sakura thought. Sighing, she spoke:

"Naruto, you realize that they might react in a similar fashion to seeing me with you? I've been named a traitor and missing-nin too, you remember."

Naruto scowled. "I know. But I need you to support me. You're the best medic-nin, and you're one of the strongest nin in Konoha. And anybody who would support us would know that you're really loyal. It's only the ones who'd oppose us who think you're actually an enemy of Konoha."

"Okay," she muttered. "If you say so."

"Just…" Naruto paused. "I need you to be there, okay?"

She couldn't argue with that, not when she say the expression lurking behind the bright blue eyes of her old friend. She nodded. "I'll be there, Naruto. Count on it."

"Right. We move out immediately."

* * *

It was fortunate that the night gate guards on duty were old enough to recognize Naruto. It would have put quite a kink in their plans if the jinchuuriki had been refused entry. As it was, the two guards gaped, slack-jawed, and after determining that it really was Naruto and that he really was alive, they let him in. Though not without an escort- a jounin was called upon, and he led Naruto straight towards the heart of Konoha—the Hokage's tower and the Council. Another Leaf-nin was dispatched to gather the Councilmembers together, as it was a standing order that any visitor of interest showing up at the gate was conducted to an audience with the Council as soon as said visitor clear the security checks.

As it was night, the streets were mostly empty, and not many were around to glimpse the returned-from-the-presumed-dead Naruto. That was where Sakura came in.

Being an A-class kunoichi, or thereabouts, Sakura was able to mask her presence well enough to sneak undetected over the wall and into Konoha. Sad to say, it helped that the war and poor personnel management by the Council had weakened Konoha's defenses such that a B-class would have made it in. But in any case, Sakura made it over the wall and, in henge, dashed through the streets until she found her targets.

The street was one of the main areas where apartment buildings had been built to accommodate the large number of bachelor and clanless ninja in Konoha. Sakura ran from door to door, pounding loudly and shouting: "Uzumaki Naruto's back! He's alive! Uzumaki Naruto is alive and he's meeting with the Council right now!"

It was the plan that the news would distract anyone from looking at her too hard and realizing she was using a henge to change her appearance. As Sakura dashed down the streets, yelling at the top of her formidable lungs, it seemed that it was working. Doors opened behind her and occupants' voice rose in surprise and curiosity.

"What's going on?"

"Uzumaki? Uzumaki's _alive_?"

"Hey, Naruto's back! By the gods!"

"They say he's meeting with the Council now…"

"Let's go, I want to see this!"

Sakura smiled grimly as shinobi, kunoichi, and even some civilians scrambled out of their homes and headed for the Hokage's Tower. Objective one, complete. Now for the clan compounds.

As Sakura moved around the village, rousing everyone from their beds and driving them by force of suggestion toward the Council meeting chamber, Naruto was standing in silent patience in the waiting room outside said chamber. The Councilmembers were mostly elderly, but also quite fond of making people wait for them merely because they had the power to do so. This, too, had been taken into account when the plan had been made. The wait that the Council forced upon Naruto also gave Sakura more time to rouse up a crowd of spectators who would fill the chamber to watch the meeting. It was entirely legal for them to do so; such a meeting was not secret or restricted. And with such a large crowd (of mostly ninja) demanding to watch the proceedings, the Council wouldn't dare deny.

Some of the guards on duty at the Hokage's Tower kept back the growing crowd as they pressed forward to catch a glimpse of the returned jinchuuriki. Naruto had nearly a legendary status with the forces of Konoha, mostly because he completely decimated an army of enemy ninja in the process of hunting down the ones who had murdered Hinata. To hear that he'd returned, when he'd been assumed dead by most everyone… It was news that everyone wanted to know the truth of.

At last, at last, the Council called Naruto in, and- calmly, expressionlessly- he entered the chamber. Behind him, the spectators surged, following. The Council frowned to see the crowd, but had no basis for opposing its presence.

"State your name before the Council," said its spokesman in a loud commanding voice. Naruto stood tall in the center of the chamber.

"I am Uzumaki Naruto," he said loudly enough for everyone to hear.

"How can we be sure you are who you say you are?"

"I bear the seal mark of the Kyuubi jinchuuriki," Naruto replied, lifting his shirt to reveal it. "The mark can't be reproduced."

The Council shifted uncomfortably at the sight, and murmured amongst themselves.

"Oh come on!" shouted a voice from the crowd. "It's Uzumaki! We can all see that, and we vouch for its truth!"

"Silence!" shouted the Council's spokesman. "The audience will be silent, or they will be banned from the proceedings!"

Some murmurs, but the crowd subsided. Naruto stood still, but his eyes flicked covertly around the faces of those watching, gauging their reactions to the Council. Sakura, he realized, was right. There would be no love lost if the Council were to all die.

All around him were faces of discontent, even hatred. Even on some of the faces of the on-duty ninja. The realization made Naruto's resolve harden even further.

"The Council will accept that you are Uzumaki Naruto," the proclamation rang out. Then, officiously, "And demands to know why it has taken so long for you to return to the village. Such a thing could be taken as dereliction of duty. What is it you want to accomplish, returning now?"

"I left under extenuating circumstances," Naruto reminded the Council. "My wife had just been killed and I released a high level of the Kyuubi's power, going berserker and eliminating a large portion of an enemy army. That had strong effects on me, and I was unfit to return until now.

"As for what I'm doing here…" Naruto's chin lifted and a hand stabbed out, leveling an accusative finger at the Council "…I'm here to remove the corrupt leaders from power and reestablish a lawful government in Konoha."

There was a moment of stunned silence…

And then all Hell broke loose in the Council chamber.

* * *

The Councilmembers all stood and began shouting, as the crowd did the same. The cacophony of voices raised such a racket that barely anything comprehensible was audible. Naruto did catch a few things, though.

"Call the guards!" shrieked one Councilmember.

"Kill him, kill him! Kill the demon!" shouted another. And:

"Rally to Uzumaki!"

"Down with the Council!"

and "Rokudaime Uzumaki!" came from the crowd. Shinobi and kunoichi exploded into action, as Council-supporters and opponents pulled weapons and began battling. The Council's own group of bodyguards- not typical Konoha-trained ninja- coalesced around their employers.

Civilians scrambled for the exits, as the chaos spilled out of the chamber and into any space available. Someone shouted from the windows: "Overthrow the corrupt Council! Seize Konoha for the righteous!"

And the fighting spread to the streets like a fire lit on dry tinder.

Inside the Council chamber, Naruto let out a controlled chakra pulse that exploded out from him like a physical wall. The force of the pure power pushed people away from him in a wide radius, and taking one look at the returned shinobi they kept the distance. Naruto had been powerful when he left, and he was powerful now in his homecoming.

"Seize the Councilmembers alive!" he shouted as a few ninja attacked the Council's guards. "They'll face trial legally!"

The statement won him the support of those ninja who had hesitated at the outbreak, and they joined the fray. Naruto armed himself with a kunai, and closed with a guard.

* * *

Sakura had barely any warning before the streets around her were filled with the chaos of ninja fighting, civilians panicking, and fire flickering. The flames had to have come from messy jutsu from the ninja battles, and she did what she could to contain the flames- they wanted to change Konoha's government, not level the place- but she was evidently too obvious a target and was quickly drawn into battle against pro-Council ninja.

It amazed her that such people existed, but then she recalled some of the corrupt Konoha ninja who had emerged during her childhood (Mizuki, Kabuto, and Orochimaru came to mind), and it suddenly became not as surprising. It was still difficult to attack these ninja- young, old, it didn't matter. They still wore Konoha hite-ate.

Sakura ducked a kunai strike from one of the Chunin fighting her, trying to decide how best to disable her without causing too much damage to the young girl. Doing so while evading the girl and her companions' attacks was proving a bit of a challenge.

_:Your opponent always has an advantage when you're fighting to disable and they're fighting to kill,: _Sakura reflected bitterly. She twisted around and caught the foot of one of the young boys as his kick flew past her. Deftly hamstringing him with a chakra-scalpel, she tossed him away as far as she could and still have him land safely.

"Stop now!" she growled at the others. "I don't want to have to hurt you!"

They sneered at her, all youthful arrogance and anger. Sakura crouched, holding a kunai in one hand and wielding a chakra-scalpel with the fingers of the other.

They rushed her in concerted movement, and she rolled fluidly away from their attacks, delivering her own calculated stabs and slashed- most of which were blocked. She didn't want to use her super strength, because it would damage the ground and buildings and because she didn't want to _really _hurt anyone.

She hit one across the chest and arm with her chakra knife, and blood splattered. She tried not to panic, drop everything, and rush to the kid's side. _:It's superficial, it's superficial. Don't worry about it…:_

"Hyaaaaaa!" screamed one of the others, leaping at her. She snatched the kid from the air, delivered a nerve-tap, and tossed him. And then she saw the jounin who was charging her way, looking murderous. _:Oh shit.:_

With a bound, Sakura got behind the bleeding Chunin- the last one standing- and put her out of commission with a few well-placed punches. Then she was all free to face the jounin.

"Traitor!" snarled the man when he got closer. Sakura fought the urge to roll her eyes.

"Please. The Council is not Konoha," she retorted. She blocked his punch and slewed her body to the left to avoid getting spitted by the kunai in his other hand. He leapt backwards, throwing the kunai as he went. Sakura knocked the weapon out of the way with her own, crouching in preparation for her next move.

The jounin was flipping rapidly through a series of handseals. Sakura recognized it as a genjutsu just as he released it on her. _:Keh. As if; you got nothing on Itachi, buddy.:_

"Kai," Sakura said, almost lazily, and pivoted on her heel to let the jounin pass harmlessly by her as he tried to use the time she was trapped in the genjutsu to slice and dice her.

She turned as he flew by, forming her own set of handseals. The jutsu was a familiar one, a simple one, but one that she'd appreciated as useful and effective from the first time she'd seen it done. The Uchiha clan had gotten the use of this particular jutsu down to an art: the Katon.

Sakura reached the last seal, took a deep breath, and let it roar out as a massive burst of bright flame. It most certainly burned the jounin's eyebrows a bit, while- by virtue of surgical precision- not even singing the surrounding buildings.

The jounin had fallen back, literally and figuratively, and now scrambled up, pulling out another kunai from his hip pouch. He took one step toward, then shivered, screamed, slashed at the air once or twice, dropped the kunai, shivered again, and dropped like a marionette with its strings cut.

Sakura stared. "The hell?"

"That was a fine Katon," murmured a deep voice at her ear. She jerked a little and then sighed.

"Aren't you not supposed to be here?" she asked Itachi. "Didn't you hear Naruto back at the hut?"

"Yes, and I acknowledged that the consequences might be bad if I were to be seen supporting him."

Sakura opened her mouth to make a snarky comment about how it obviously hadn't quite sunk in when she realized what he'd done. Her mouth closed, and then she sighed again. "Sneaky. _'If _you were to be seen.' Real clever, Itachi-san."

He seemed to ignore that and instead told her: "You have to get Uzumaki out of the Council chamber, immediately. There's a large explosive jutsu underneath set to go off at the slightest sign."

"_What?!" _Sakura said, and then was sprinting off toward the Hokage's Tower at full speed. Itachi followed.

"Why the hell didn't you go to him directly?" she demanded.

"If you told him, he would take immediate action," he replied, not voicing the obvious continuation: And if I told him, he would hesitate, even if it just a short time.

"Right," grumbled Sakura to hide her concern. "Why is there an explosive jutsu there anyway?! It's crazy!"

"It would seem that this Council is distrustful of everyone, and intended it as a measure to put a stop to coups such as this. Of course, that is merely speculation, but…"

"But it makes total sense considering what the Council's like these days. Idiots," Sakura said. "Oh crap."

They'd reached the Tower, and there were many more fights occurring around its base than out further in the village. Sakura- and Itachi ghosting along behind her like a shadow, unseen and undetected- plunged through them, reaching the entrance only after a bit of struggle. Huffing, Sakura drew in a deep breath before dashing inside the building and roaring: "EVERYONE OUT! THERE'S AN EXPLOSIVE JUTSU IN THE TOWER!"

This had the intended effect of causing a mass exodus, though it was a slow exodus because everyone inside was still embroiled in combat.

"Dammit!" Sakura said, punching, elbowing, and stabbing her way through the corridors. "A little help, maybe?"

A shiver in the air next to her ear, like something had just passed through the air there, and a large group of the people blocking the way suddenly decided to stop fighting and run like hell out of the building. That genjutsu stuff was handy; Sakura decided to invest more study in the technique.

"Thanks," she murmured as she hustled down the hall.

* * *

The Council chamber had pretty much emptied of people as the flow of fighting led the conflict out of the cramped chamber and out into the surrounding areas. All who were left were Naruto, most of the Council, most of the Council bodyguards, and a couple assorted ninja. As she entered, Sakura noticed one of the Councilmembers disappearing through a door at the back of the chamber. There were about five left; one seemed to be lying unconscious on the floor. Not good; once they were all (or mostly all) out, it was safe to assume they'd set of the explosion.

Gauging the battle, Sakura waited until she could jump in close to Naruto. Her chance came when he jumped back from the bodyguard he'd been fighting to brace himself for another round.

"Naruto!" she called.

"Sakura-chan! The damn Council is escaping from a hidden door," he growled, dodging a senbon.

"Naruto," she said quickly. "We have to get outta here! There's an explosive jutsu and-"

"Dammit!" Naruto burst out, and leaped forward to rake a clawed hand down the face of one of the bodyguards. "Stop running away, you cowards!"

Sakura winced. It seemed that despite other changes in his character Naruto hadn't really changed much in his fighting style or attitude. He still liked to use brute force, and was still rather single-minded in a battle.

"Naruto!" She frowned at his back as he went at it with renewed fervor. She glanced toward the ninja who were trying to help him reach the Councilmembers. "Get out of here, they're gonna set of an explosive jutsu!"

It took her two tries, but eventually, they left. Time was running out. There were three Councilmembers left, counting the unconscious one.

Quite abruptly, Itachi's voice was back in her ear. "The Councilmembers who have escaped are being rounded up by nins outside."

Breath wooshed out of Sakura in relief. Leaving the chamber wouldn't mean giving up. "Naruto! We have the other Councilmembers! You can let these go! We have to get-"

Her eyes widened and her heart gave a lurch as she felt a spike of chakra around her. The explosive jutsu. "Oh, sh-"

Sakura started a dash toward Naruto, but before she reached him, someone else did. Itachi appeared next to the blond jinchuuriki, and bodily threw him through the hidden door through which the Councilmembers had been escaping. The air in room was just beginning to shimmer with building heat and pressure when Itachi blurred in Sakura's vision. Then suddenly, she felt a hand fist in her shirt, and then she was airborne, sailing toward the bank of windows that let a bare square of light into the chamber.

She turned at she flew through the air, and she caught a glimpse of Itachi watching her flight with a small, ironic smile on his face. Her eyes widened, her lips moved: _No._

And then the air lit with the fierce light and heat of the explosive jutsu, and the concussion of the sudden conflagration hit Sakura like a sledgehammer. She clipped the windowsill on the way out- the glass had already been shattered at some point- feeling the skin on the side of her body closest to the explosion blister from the fire, and saw the ground below her briefly before she hit the side of a nearby building and blacked out.


	7. 7 Good News and Bad News

_TH-- Okay peeps. This is the ending. I wavered a lot between writing a happy ending or a sad one. At one point I considered doing both, but... I couldn't manage to get both situations. So this is the ending you'll get. It's a little open-ended, but I think you'll all get the general sense of it. Um. Thanks to those of you who stuck it out with me though the whole thing. I appreciate it. Thanks to those who reviewed, who faved, etc. Without readers, writers can't exist. So here's to you.

* * *

_

* * *

Sakura wavered on the brink of consciousness, her eyes slitted open and a few fragmented images managing to make it to her brain. Most of what she saw was fire; the flames of the explosion still burning. Dimly, a feeling of horror struggled in her chest, fighting the numbness of unconsciousness. Sakura fought it too, trying to wrench herself awake and aware. but her body refused to obey her. She drifted…

…And half-woke to the feeling of her damaged body being lifted gently. Voices murmured over her, and a hand was at her wrist, on her forehead, touching the twisted leg in which at least one bone was surely broken. Sakura couldn't even flinch at the pain, but a fresh wave of blackness washed her mind…

* * *

When next Sakura woke, she found herself in a very familiar setting. Just… she was seeing it from a different angle.

Sakura stared up at the ceiling of the hospital room with a perplexed look on her face. _:What is…? Oh. I'm in a ward bed. I'm a patient. Got it.:_

She lifted her head slightly, experimentally. It was a little stiff, but she managed to look around without much pain. The room was empty; it must be a private room because Sakura's bed was the only one. By the readouts on the monitors, she was completely healed of whatever injuries had landed her in the hospital in the first place.

_:Physical injuries anyway,: _she thought, as she remembered flashes of what had happened prior to her losing consciousness. Tears gathered at the corners of her eyes and dripped down into the hair at her temples. She turned her face into the pillow and wept as quietly as she could, because there was no way Itachi could have made it out of the chamber before the explosion. It was almost a certainty that he was dead, and even though that was what he wanted, Sakura could only feel pain at the thought.

_:He deserved happiness, not in death, but happiness and fulfillment in life,: _she thought. _:Gods, let him be fortunate in his next life…:_

She heard footsteps approaching the door to her room, and hurriedly scrubbed the tears from her face and composed herself. When the door opened, revealing Naruto, she was mostly presentable.

The sight of her old friend, wearing the traditional Hokage robes, nearly set her off again, though.

Naruto saw she was awake and his face lit up. He flashed to her bedside and grabbed her hand. "Sakura-chan! You're awake. I'm glad…"

"N-naruto… You look…" she trailed of helplessly, a little tied for words. She settled on squeezing his hand tightly and smiling, albeit tremulously. She swallowed a few tears and whispered: "Hokage-sama."

Naruto's grin turned into a crooked smirk. "It sounds weird, coming from you."

There was a moment of silence before Sakura pulled her mind together enough to ask: "Why am I still here? Aren't I supposed to be a missing-nin?"

Naruto's grin returned full-force. "Oh that. I managed to get the councilmembers to admit to conspiracy. As far as the village knows, you are perfectly loyal and were driven from Konoha and called a traitor because you found out about the conspiracy and the council wanted to silence you."

"You're kidding," Sakura sputtered after mouthing soundlessly for a beat. "When did you get so… so… uh…"

"Subtle?" Naruto asked innocently. "Maybe I was a little rowdy when I was younger, but really Sakura-chan, that hurts!"

"Oh shut up," she growled, seeing the teasing glint in the blond's eye. It was gratifying… it was more like the old Naruto… "And you weren't rowdy. You were a hell-raising little brat with no tact. You didn't even know the meaning of the word subtle."

"Things change," Naruto said, more seriously. Sakura sobered up.

"Yeah… I know."

Another moment of silence. Sakura whispered: "Naruto?"

She looked up, met his eyes. She saw fear in them, fear that she was going to ask a question that Naruto didn't want to answer because he knew it would hurt her. So she faltered, unsure if she could take yet another death, another blow. She'd suffered through so many already… this one might be the last her heart could take…

"Nevermind." She dropped her head, staring at her bedsheets. She felt Naruto's hand squeeze her shoulder.

"You know, now that you're no longer considered a missing-nin, you can stay here! In Konoha. You can be reinstated at the hospital. Or, you know, I hear that there are openings in the Council…" Naruto said, in fake cheer, but with real hopefulness. Sakura looked up at him and gave him a smile, albeit a weak one.

"Of course I'm staying, you idiot. Konoha is my home. But I'm not so sure about the Council position… I don't want to leave the hospital," she said.

"Maybe… maybe you won't have to," Naruto said hopefully. "You're the Chief Medic, you could represent the hospital and all that on the council."

"That would be fine," she conceded.

"Alright!" Naruto said. Sakura's expression softened.

"You know," she said quietly. "You're acting more like yourself now."

Naruto hesitated, his smile slipping a bit. He admitted softly: "It's been good to be back in Konoha. I hadn't realized how much I'd missed it."

Sakura reached up and squeezed Naruto's hand where it still rested on her shoulder.

* * *

Within the week, Sakura was healed and back to healing others. She felt… oddly light and empty, though. There was no longer a heavy weight hanging on her shoulders, the dark pall that the Council had drawn down over the village with their paranoia, fear-mongering, and bitterness had been relieved somewhat by the general brightness of Naruto's indomitable spirit and the cleansing of the council chamber of the corrupt members.

Speaking of… The Councilmembers were tried in trial before the village, and all had been found guilty of corruption and misuse of office. They were all sentenced to execution (Leaf was, after all, essentially a military state and in the middle of a war, acts against it were punishable by death), thought Naruto viewed this decision with distaste. He hadn't had much to do with the sentencing; the decision had been reached by an elected jury of villagers and ninja. He DID make the decision to allow the Councilmembers to take their own lives, should they wish to do so. He said: "They don't have any honor left, but some of them apparently think they do. Letting them have this illusion won't make a difference in their fates- they'll still be dead- but it'll spare the executioner's hands of some blood."

Sakura had marveled again at the changes time and experience had wrought in her heart's brother, that he had thought of that. Konoha had suffered so many losses over the last few years that the executioner would probably be a young, promoted-too-quickly-to-fill-ranks-depleted-by-war shinobi or kunoichi. The job of killing the former councilmembers would likely have a profound psychological effect on him or her. And Naruto had understood that without prompting or hinting.

It was fortunate that the executioner wasn't even needed, then. All the councilmembers elected to end their own lives. Naruto and a small group of select Leaf-nin (chosen for their predicted ability to weather the repeated experience of watching someone kill him/herself) presided over each ritual suicide. It probably wasn't the best inauguration into the Hokage seat, but he took it stoically, not breaking down. Sakura knew it was painful for him, though. Naruto had never liked to watch people die, or to allow others to kill themselves. He had always maintained that there was _always _'another way.' But not this time. He knew the councilmembers would have to face the judgment meted out by the jury of villagers and ninja. He'd confided in Sakura before during and after the messy business, and she understood completely. There was nothing like war to make people into pacifists, and she was sure that she and Naruto had qualified for the title long ago. As much as it was apparent that these deaths were needed, they still made the two remnants of Team Seven cringe.

In any case, the corrupt old Council was gone, and Naruto was well on his way to building a new, balanced one. Konoha had fixed the damage caused by the coup, and things were settling back into a rhythm. Naruto was reestablishing contact with Suna (the Council had, because of their fear of the one-time jinchuuriki Kazekage Gaara, cut ties soon after they'd taken power). Chuunin, Jounin, and ANBU were being deployed and used in more prudent ways. Konoha was slowly improving under Naruto's watch.

_:So why do I feel so empty?: _Sakura wondered as she sat at her office desk with a cup of tea sending wisps of steam curling up under her chin.

She knew the answer, but she didn't want to acknowledge it. She had refused to acknowledge it from the instant she'd woken up after the coup.

Absently, Sakura sipped the tea. Setting the cup down, she sighed, and got up to do her rounds.

* * *

The next day, she was filling out supply order forms in her office when there was knock on her door. Before she could say 'it's open' whomever it was barged right on in. The sharp reprimand froze on her tongue when she saw it was Naruto. And his face was… Well, it held a very interesting expression, a conglomeration of numerous emotions. Sakura could pick out concern and wariness, but couldn't quite pinpoint the rest.

"Naruto, what…?" she said, half-rising from her seat as he strode up to her.

"I went out for ramen for lunch," he said, seemingly out of the blue. Sakura blinked and he continued, "and when I came back, _this _was sitting on my desk. In my _locked _office. My _guarded_, locked office."

He dropped a sheet of folded paper on her desk and Sakura looked at it. Written on the front in a firm hand was her name: Haruno Sakura. She looked at it. Looked at Naruto.

"What is it?"

"I don't know," Naruto said. "I couldn't open it."

"Oh. But… Why was it in your office?"

"I _don't know_. Just _open _it already!" he growled.

"Okay, okay," Sakura capitulated, picking it up. It had to have been sealed with a blood seal so that only she could open it. Sakura bit her thumb and quickly swiped the bleeding appendage so a thin line of red streaked through her name. With a whisper of sound, the paper shifted, unfolding slightly. She opened it fully and smoothed the creases. Her eyes scanned the message, stuttered to a halt, scanned again, went vague.

"Gods…" she whispered, sitting heavily. "Oh…"

"What?" Naruto demanded. "What is it?"

Sakura weakly lifted the paper slightly. Naruto snatched it.

_Iwa has received news of the events in Konoha._

_They expect the new leadership to be unstable after the coup, and_

_will be moving against the village soon._

Naruto waved the paper, his brow creasing in confusion. "We anticipated this. There're extra patrols on the border and we're ready to repel any Iwa attacks. Gaara has pledged help. Why are you so-"

"Naruto, don't you get it?" she asked, intensely. "Forget about what it _says_ and think about what it _means_!"

Naruto squinted at the message and Sakura could almost see the gears turning in his head. Then his eyes snapped up to hers, wide.

"Yes," she whispered, taking the paper back gently. "He's alive."

* * *

Naruto was dead-set against her going. "You don't _know _where he is! We couldn't trace that letter, we couldn't even say for sure it is from him!"

"I know it was him, and I know he's there," Sakura returned, not stopping in her packing. There was small backpack on her bed, filled with a spare pair of clothes, a small container of soldier pills, a full med kit, and a waterproof cloak. She strapped it shut and turned to the weapons laid out on her duvet. She started tucking them into the random pouches and sheaths around her body as Naruto fumed beside her.

"Sakura," he said finally, warningly. "Don't make me order you to stay in the village."

She turned to him and met his eyes. "Don't order me Naruto."

_Because if you do, I will have to disobey_. It was unspoken, but it hung between them in her tone, in her eyes. Naruto deflated.

"Why do you care so much?" he asked. "You don't have to go look for him. He didn't say where he was, or even that he wanted us to look for him."

"He saved our lives," Sakura said. "No. He saved Konoha, more than once. I just… I don't know. I guess I just don't want him to be abandoned by us again."

Naruto didn't say anything for a long time, and Sakura bent to pull on her boots. Finally, the Rokudaime Hokage sighed. "Be careful, Sakura. Iwa's been stopped at the border, but they might slip through."

"Of course," she replied, smiling for him.

* * *

The little house looked the same as it had when she and Naruto had left it; unsurprising since it had only been about two weeks ago that they'd set out for Konoha filled with plans to depose the Council.

Sakura slowed as she approached it, nervous, unsure. Just as she hesitated, wondering whether she had been correct or if she would have to endure another of life's bitter disappointments, the door swung open noiselessly.

Her breath caught. It _was _him.

He stood in the doorway, staring at her in his cool, intent way, crimson eyes steady. Several yards away, she stared back, jade eyes flickering in surprise, relief, joy, pain.

"I thought-" she stopped, embarrassed, as her voice creaked under the strain of the emotion it carried. She tried again. "I thought you were dead."

A pause.

"No," he said quietly in his deep voice.

"How did you… how…"

"Substitution technique."

Sakura fumbled, looking for something to say, anything. Itachi's flat, steady gaze was heavy.

"We received you warning. We're holding Iwa at the border. Naruto's reformed the Konoha-Suna alliance, and we're utilizing our ninja better, so we're holding well against them," she said, stopping herself before she started babbling.

"Yes."

Sakura bit her lip. Why wasn't he saying anything more? Was he angry that she'd come? Did he not want to be found? What was he even doing here?

"Why haven't you returned to the Akatsuki?" she blurted, flushed, and dropped her eyes.

A long silence. After a while, Sakura glanced up, and jumped a little to find him standing closer to her, only a few steps away. He regarded her calmly.

"Akatsuki is finished," he told her, nonchalantly, as if just telling her the time. She gaped.

"Uh? What do you-?"

"Do you know how I was captured by Konoha?" he interrupted.

"I… You were found, injured, in the forest. Akatsuki is-?" Sakura replied.

"I was injured in my attempt to eliminate the orange-masked Akatsuki member you knew as Tobi. I succeeded in my goal, but was too severely injured to move after. As a result, I was captured by a Leaf patrol."

Sakura opened her mouth, closed it, opened it again. "You killed another Akatsuki member? But… why? You said you felt some loyalty to the group…"

"Tobi's real name was Uchiha Madara." The pronouncement made Sakura dizzy with the implications. "He was the real leader of the organization, using Pein as a figurehead. A pawn. Madara's true and only goal was to destroy Konoha utterly. I… did not agree with this plan. However, I was never in a position to eliminate the threat, eliminate Madara, until recently."

"So you attacked him, killed him, and saved Konoha again. And for your troubles, you were captured by Leafnin and imprisoned. Tortured," Sakura whispered, her heart aching for him once again. He took one step closer, calling back Sakura's attention.

"No," he said firmly. "Not tortured. Even from the start, thinking me one of Konoha's bitterest enemies, you were unable to bring harm to a bound prisoner."

"I…" Sakura said. "Not tortured physically, then. But… You have been… You have been so _loyal_, through everything, despite everything. And Konoha has… We have not…"

"I swore to protect my village. I swore to protect the citizens who could not protect themselves, I swore to protect the ninja from threats beyond their skill. I do not do this expecting acknowledgement, gratitude." One of those small not-smiling-yet-smiling expressions rose in his eyes. His hand rose and touched the wetness on her face. "But you are here, Konoha hitai-ate on your brow. Proud. Loyal. And weeping for me. That is enough. That is more than I deserve."

"It's not up to you to determine what you deserve others to do for you," Sakura said, letting her tears fall freely. "This is my choice. This is what I believe. You deserve tears, you deserve thanks, you deserve respect and I wish Konoha could give you acknowledgement."

"This is enough," he reiterated, hand still hovering over her cheek. Her hand rose hesitantly, and the tips of her fingers touched the back of his hand, before lowering slowly. His hand fell away as well, but his dimly focused eyes remained fixed on her.

He was alive. He was alive and he was _here_. She knew he could never go back to Konoha. The hatred, the fear, for him was too strong there. Too strong for them to overcome. But… in all those years he'd been here, Naruto had not been found. Not until Itachi, with his hypersensitivity to the Kyuubi jinchuuriki's chakra, had stumbled upon him. If Itachi stayed here, who would be able to sense the S-class missing-nin? Who would be looking for him? Who would he allow to find him? Naruto would probably stop sending Leaf Hunter-nins after him, or would somehow throw those missions so they were inevitable failures. Others looking to bring in the Bingo Book bounty attached to the Uchiha's head would probably meet with the same success as they had before- which is to say: none. And Akatsuki… Itachi said it was finished. And Sakura knew many of its members were dead…

"What about Pein and the other two Akatsuki members? Are they dead?"

Itachi shook his head. "Pein and Konan are no longer a problem to Konoha."

"I wasn't asking out of concern for Konoha," Sakura said. "I want to know if you are in danger because you killed Akatsuki's true leader."

"Those two are driven, but not vengeful. They will not come after me. Especially not while they have to deal with the problems with Iwa and Kumo they inherited from Madara. Zetsu…" Itachi paused. "Zetsu might attack me, though I would not expect him to. His sense of loyalty is… unique. It may be that with Madara dead, he will simply move on."

"Are you… safe?" Sakura asked very quietly.

"Safe…" repeated Itachi, as if wondering at the word. "I could never be safe. But I am… not in danger."

Sakura paused, lifted her eyes slowly to meet the Sharingan. "Will you stay?"

Itachi didn't respond right away. He held her eyes with his. And then: "This place is out of the way, hidden. Leaf patrols do not come out this far, and no major roads pass near. The area may be secured with a few well-placed wards. And it is close enough to Konoha that I may… keep my oaths."

"Is that a yes?" Sakura asked, a little wryly.

Itachi looked up at the trees as a wind stirred them. "I almost let myself die in the explosion. It would have been easy; just release the substitution jutsu a little too late…"

Sakura's heart pounded. She whispered: "But…"

"But I had the speed to make it in time. And… I thought… perhaps my answer is not death." Sakura wanted him to look at her again, she wanted to see the expression in his eyes, faint as it might be, as he spoke. She had learned to recognize some signs of emotion in his face, as she had years before with his brother. But he keep looking at the canopy of leaves above them, continuing to speak slowly. "And so…"

"And so you're alive," Sakura put in softly. And then, and _then_, he looked at her, and she held her breath.

"I am alive," he agreed. And then he smiled. "And I am beginning to accept that."

_-End-_


End file.
